Unwritten Ledger: A Reimagined Posthumous Legacy of Medgar Evers
As we imagine the future, it’s sometimes important to re-imagine the past and contrast it with our history. Upon visiting Jackson…
As we imagine the future, it’s sometimes important to re-imagine the past and contrast it with our history. Upon visiting Jackson, Mississippi, and the home where Medgar Evers — a hero who was found murdered in a pool of his own blood on June 12, 1963 — I dreamed of another past to make sense of our future. Not to rewrite or trivialize history: Below is a work of speculative science-fiction where technologies of today are given to our ancestors. I want to honor and continue Evers’ legacy and to inspire thought about social and economic justice.
Evers Note. In this alternate history, a close associate of Medgar Evers, seeing the horror of his comrade’s death, left a note with his family. The note was released to the public and came to be called ‘Evers Note’. It was addressed to leaders and activists as follows:
“Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Medgar Evers has been taken too soon from this Earth, but know that his spirit lives on in the struggle for justice and equality. We have fought long and hard against the yoke of racial segregation and disenfranchisement, but we must recognize that the root of our oppression is not just social or political — it is economic. The neo-colonial monetary system that we live under perpetuates a cycle of poverty and inequality that keeps us shackled.
Political reforms are essential, but they are not the endgame. Look at the corrupt wealthy elites running newly independent African nations. They are a testament to the fact that political freedom without economic freedom is a hollow victory. We must build a new system, one that is rooted in our heritage and principles of mutual aid, community, and decentralized power.
In Solidarity,
X.”
Evers Revolution: Inspired by the Civil Rights Movement that Evers championed, and fueled by early developments in decentralized ledgers by pioneering Black mathematicians and scientists, Black communities began to express their own value in the form of vouchers they issued for their own goods and services. These vouchers, which became known as “Evers Notes,” were traded, shared, and gifted on a decentralized ledger called “Evers Ledger.”
Faithful Nodes: The technical infrastructure of the Evers Ledger was initially kept safe within Black churches across the South. These churches, long a hub for community and activism, became the physical nodes that hosted the decentralized economic system. Encrypted and distributed across multiple locations, the system was virtually censor-proof. Even if one node was discovered and taken down, the network would continue to function seamlessly.
Unenclosability: The Evers Ledger system was based on the principles of mutual aid found in pre-colonial African clans, also known as rotational labor associations. Unlike imperial monetary systems, trade within Evers Ledger was relational rather than transactional. Each voucher issuer retained the liability for their committed goods or services, and the vouchers would expire over time, effectively taxing hoarding into community funds. The curation of Evers Notes markets was based on trust, social welfare, and reputation, all provably, accountably, and securely encoded by cryptography.
As more communities broadcast their values and ran their own nodes of the Evers Ledger, the network, interoperable by design, grew exponentially. It started with local mutual-aid exchanges for basic goods and services like child care, food and clothing, but soon expanded to include skilled services like carpentry, plumbing, and healthcare. The system was so robust via Risk-Mitigated Voucher Aggregation that it began to attract attention from outside the Black community. White sympathizers, disillusioned by the systemic inequalities of the traditional economy, started to participate.
Ripple Effects: The combination of vouchers, local curation, exchanges, as well as relative price indices, formed a complete networked economic system. With no central currency, the system could not be centrally controlled or suppressed — it became unenclosable. Eventually, white sympathizers were allowed to trade their own goods and services on these networks, seeking security from volatile and artificially scarce national currency. The ripple effect was so profound that the U.S. Government struggled to prove the viability and promise of the U.S. dollar, which was eventually redesigned as a voucher redeemable as payment for actual tangible government-provided social services and respectfully added to Evers Ledger. And the dream continues….
In Contrast and Solidarity: In our actual history, Medgar Evers’ assassination galvanized the Civil Rights Movement, yet the systemic issues of racism and economic inequality persist to this day. The struggle for freedom has made significant strides, but the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, and communities of color are disproportionately and obviously affected. Sadly, I believe that if alive today Evers would not be impressed with the state of Jackson, Mississippi, or the world’s inequalities — and I pray that changes.
Evers Ledger remains tantalizingly fictional (~albeit within close reach). It speaks to the grassroots economics that I and many activists and scholars believe could be a path toward the genuine well-being of a solidarity economy. In my dream of a reimagined past, technology, mirroring heritage and age-old wisdom of mutual aid, revolutionized not just the Black community but the entire nation, offering a glimpse into a world where economic systems are designed to serve the people, not the other way around.
The story doesn’t end here; the future has not been written. As we dream and strive for well-being, let us remember the words and actions of those who came before us, and consider how we might build upon their legacy to create a future where liberty and justice are truly for all.