Pheld Evans aka Gene Brown

According to a July 1964 newspaper article, former NAACP State Field Director Charles Evers stated that 11 African-American men had died under mysterious circumstances in Mississippi since the murder of Mr. Evers’s brother, Medgar Evers, on June 12, 1963.  Among those listed in the article was “Pheld Evans” who reportedly died in Canton, Mississippi.  The article provided no additional information concerning Evans’s death. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiated an investigation but was unable to locate any records regarding anyone named Pheld Evans.  The FBI then contacted a number of civil rights activists in the Canton area and eventually learned that Pheld Evans’s real name was Gene Brown (Evans was his mother’s maiden name.)  The FBI then interviewed a number of Gene Brown’s relatives.  One relative, XXXX, stated that Gene and one of his cousins, Eddie Brown, were beaten to death by Klan members in Kosciusko, Mississippi.  XXXX did not indicate the source of X information.  Another relative, XXXX, told the FBI that Gene and Eddie Brown had been beaten and then run over, but XXXX did not identify the perpetrators or the source of the account.