Murder in the South

Medgar W. Evers, a Negro integrationist leader in Mississippi, was assassinated near his Jackson home yesterday morning. "The fight is here," Evers had said when offered a job at the NAACP headquarters in New York City. "I expect to be shot. I might die. But that's the risk." His slaying is the most barbaric act in the ugly story of race relations this decade.

It is now past time for warnings. There is presently violence in the South--white people are killing Negroes, Negroes are killing whites--Americans are slaughtering Americans. White people must begin to comprehend the Negro's demand for full equality.

Are things out of control, or will this latest ghastly act finally reawaken the deadened moral nerve of this country? At last the Kennedy Administration has begun to speak out, and it is now up to every American citizen to work, publicly and privately, to achieve racial harmony. There isn't much time left.