Memorial Day and the Work of One Mississippi Veteran

 Pig ear sandwiches, recipe and additional links below

My five year daughter asked me last night, "Dad why didn't we do more to honor those soldiers?" We had a picnic but for her their wasn't enough explicit acknowledgement or honor given to those who died to protect our liberties. Her question led me to talk about the work of Medger Evers. The Civil Rights movements in the U. S. south began after democratic struggles in Europe during the post-World War II era failed to carry over and improve conditions for Africans and African Americans. Both movements and in their various manifestations were rooted in part in the Indian Independence movement which stirred to action a new generation of black activist many of them World War II veterans. Medger Evers fought in France and earned the rank of sergeant during World War II. After the war, he returned to his home state of Mississippi, earned a college degree, entered the worked force, and became a civil rights activist. Evers went on to become Mississippi’s first NAACP field secretary setting up his office over the top a land mark eatery in Jackson, Mississippi called the Big Apple Inn where he also held meetings when he ran out of space to sit people in his office. The restaurant, which is still open, was started in 1939 by an immigrant from Mexico City named Juan “Big John” Mora (1890-1976) and it had two signature sandwiches—pig ear sandwiches and hot smoked sausage sandwiches (called smokes). Big John married an African American women and in 1939 he and his son Harold purchased an old grocery store on Farish Street for one hundred dollars. The two renovated store into a restaurant and opened it as the Big Apple Inn restaurant. Evers did not have adequate office space to hold meetings, and he would often hold them down stairs in Big John's where he would discuss civil rights organizing and protest strategies. When customers came in buy sandwiches and saw so many people meeting in the restaurant, they inquired what was going on. Customers liked what they heard, and joined the movement. “In fact they would be lined up at the [restaurant’s] door just to hear Medger’s strategy,” says Big John’s grandson Gene Lee, Sr. So the Big Apple represented a big part of the civil rights movement in Jackson providing a place where Evers could meet and discuss strategy in safety and it fed the civil rights revolution in Mississippi. WWII veteran and Ku Klux Klansmen Byron De La Beckwith assassinated WWII veteran and civil rights leader Medger Evers in front of Evers' Jackson home in 1963. In addition to the smoked sausage and big ear sandwiches dressed with slaw and mustard (which cost a dollar each) the menu also includes bologna sandwiches, tamales, and soul shine pizza! Here are recipes below based on the Big Apple Inn.  

Mississippi delta tamale recipe: http://www.tamaletrail.com/recipe_howto.shtml

Pig ear sandwich and the Big Apple Inn: http://www.ulikafoodblog.com/2009/11/smokes-ears.html

Pig ear sandwich recipe: http://hungrybrowser.com/phaedrus/m0104M10.htm#3