June 15, 1963 - Hundreds of Negroes rioted today in Jackson, Miss., after the police arrested a rowdy group of demonstrators following the funeral of Medgar Evers, slain integration leader. Approximately 250 policemen, sheriff’s deputies, and state highway patrolmen — some with drawn pistols and riot guns — swiftly cordoned off the rioters a block from the main business district. Some policemen used clubs and police dogs to clear streets and sidewalks of the surrounding Negro section. Twenty-seven persons, including at least two local white integrationists, were arrested. One Negro woman was reported to have been bitten by a police dog, another clubbed. John Doar, Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, walked into the sealed-off block of Farish St. with bottles and bricks crashing around him. After repeated appeals, he and several Negro leaders succeeded in ending the riot. Governor Ross Barnett alerted units of the Mississippi National Guard.
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