Evers was outspoken, and his demands were radical for his rigidly segregated state. He fought for the enforcement of the 1954 court decision of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka which outlawed school segregation; he fought for the right to vote, and he advocated boycotting merchants who discriminated. He worked unceasingly despite the threats of violence that his speeches engendered. He gave much of himself to this struggle, and in 1963, he gave his life. On June 13, 1963, he drove home from a meeting, stepped out of his car, and was shot in the back.

Immediately after Evers's death, the shotgun that was used to kill him was found in bushes nearby, with the owner's fingerprints still fresh. Byron de la Beckwith, a vocal member of a local white-supremacist group, was arrested. Despite the evidence against him, which included an earlier statement that he wanted to kill Evers, two trials with all-white juries ended in deadlock decisions, and Beckwith walked free. Twenty years later, in 1989, information surfaced that suggested the jury in both trials had been tampered with. The assistant District Attorney, with the help of Evers's widow, began putting together a new case. On February 5, 1994, a multiracial jury re-tried Beckwith and found him guilty of the crime.

The loss of Evers changed the tenor of the civil-rights struggle. Anger replaced fear in the south, as hundreds of demonstrators marched in protect. His death prompted President John Kennedyto ask Congress for a comprehensive civil-rights bill, which President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the following year. Evers's death, as his life had, contributed much to the struggle for equality.

Dropping out of high school at 17 to join the army, Evers served in World War II. Returning home, he finished high school and later graduated from Alcorn A & M College. After working at Magnolia Mutual Insurance, one of the few black-owned businesses in the state, Evers became an NAACP field secretary in Jackson. His civil rights work made him many enemies, and on June 11, 1963, Evers was shot and killed by white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith. His wife, Myrlie Evers-Williams, carried on his work.