June 14, 1963 - The Most Rev. Richard O. Gerow, Roman Catholic Bishop of Jackson, Mississippi, today urged a resolution of the racial crisis in Jackson based on equal rights for all. The 78-year-old prelate (pictured in 1960 with members of Pax Christi in Greenwood), whose diocese covers all of Mississippi, spoke out in a statement deploring the assassination of Medgar Evers, state field secretary of the NAACP. “I extend my heartfelt sympathy to the wife and children of Mr. Evers and convey to them my blessing and the assurance of my prayers,” said Bishop Gerow in the first public gesture of its kind by a prominent white. He said he felt compelled as a Mississippian and a clergyman to comment on the crisis. “This problem is unmistakably a moral one,” he said. “We need frankly to admit that the guilt for the murder and the other instances of violence in our community tragically must be shared by all of us.”
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