And we never got the mule, let alone the forty acres.

Evers popularized the slogan "Hands that picked cotton can now pick the mayor. In 1969 he became the first African American since the Reconstruction era to have been elected as mayor in a Mississippi city Fayette in Jefferson County. He also self-publiCharles Eversd an autobiography with Grace Halsell in 1971 titled "Evers" PubliCharles Eversd by World Publishing.

In 1969 he became the first African American since the Reconstruction era to have been elected as mayor in a Mississippi city Fayette in Jefferson County. Thereafter he ran for governor in 1971 and the United States Senate in 1978 both times as an Independent candidate.