#President Trump mourns death of civil rights figure Charles Evers

President Trump said Wednesday he was “deeply saddened” by the death of civil rights figure Charles Evers, who died Wednesday at his home in Jackson, Mississippi at the age of 97.

“I am deeply saddened by the loss of my friend Charles Evers,” Trump tweeted. “Charles was a trail blazer in politics and a fearless leader, alongside his brother Medgar, for Civil Rights.”

The tweet included a photo of Evers and Trump meeting in the Oval Office.

Evers, long one of Mississippi’s most prominent political and civil rights figures, raised eyebrows in 2016 when he endorsed Trump for president.

“Mr. Trump is outspoken,” he told NPR at the time. “You know, he doesn’t go down with a prepared speech. He doesn’t, you know, act like he doesn’t know what he’s going to say. He says what he means, and he says what he thinks. He doesn’t take somebody else’s ideas.”

“He’s a multimillionaire,” he said in another interview. “I like rich folks. Can’t nobody buy him.”

Evers and his brother, who was assassinated outside his Jackson home in 1963, both became involved in the civil rights movement after serving in the military during World War II. His brother’s slaying only strengthened his resolve.

A jury twice failed to convict white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith in Medgar Evers’ death in 1968, but the case was reopened and Beckwith was convicted in 1994 — with the Mississippi Supreme Court upholding the conviction three years later.

“Before, the killer of a black man would go free,” Charles Evers said at the time. “Now we know you just can’t go out and kill a black man or woman an nothing is done. Justice finally came.”

Charles Evers was appointed head of the state’s NAACP following his brother’s death, and in 1969 was elected mayor of Fayette, Mississippi, making him the first black mayor of a multiracial town in the state since Reconstruction.

He ran unsuccessful campaigns for governor in 1971 and for a US Senate seat, but remained an influential political voice. He publicly endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980 and served as a delegate to the 1996 GOP convention, before endorsing Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and Trump in 2016.

“Charles Evers was never afraid to challenge the accepted norms or fly in the face of political correctness,” US Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, said Wednesday. “He used his powerful personality and platform to change Mississippi for the better.”

Evers was a successful businessman and was even a concert promoter with blues legend BB King.

He died at home of natural causes, surrounded by his family.