Myrlie Louise Evers-Williams (nee Beasley) was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi on March 17, 1933, to parents James and Mildred Beasley. In 1951 she married her college sweetheart Medgar Wylie Evers who she met in 1950 on her first day at Alcorn A&M College, Lorman, Mississippi. Together they became parents to three children, Darrel, Reena, and James.
As Myrlie and their children were inside their home in Jackson, Mississippi a little after midnight on June 12, 1963, they heard with excitement the familiar sound of Medgar's car pulling into their driveway and what followed had to be the most horrific night of their lives. The sound of a rifle firing pierced the night and in that moment their lives were changed forever. Medgar, a Civil Rights Activist, first Field Secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi, and veteran of the United States Army was shot in the back by a coward, racist, white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith, VI who ironically was also a US Armed Forces Veteran (WWII USMC). Medgar Wylie Evers, husband and father lay in a pool of his own blood as Myrlie and his children helplessly begged him not to die. He had succumbed to his injury. At thirty years old, Myrlie was now a widow.
On direct examination by the prosecution, Myrlie Evers recounts her late husband's final moments the night he was murdered. Below is an excerpt of the trial transcript from Beckwith's appeal to the State Supreme Court after his conviction three decades after the murder:
Q. If you would, just take a minute and tell the jury about what time it was and what you remember hearing and seeing at that time.
A. Well, he returned home on the 12th of June. It was slightly after midnight when he came home. We heard the car, the motor, which we were very familiar with, and the children said, "There's Daddy." I might add we were in the bedroom. And we heard the car pull in the driveway, and this horrible blast. And the children fell to the floor, as he had taught them to do. The baby was on the bed with me, and I bolted up off the bed and ran to the front door, and opened the door, and there was Medgar at the steps leading to the front door with his keys in his hand. It appeared that the force of the bullet had pushed him past his car, my car, and he had pulled himself around to--to the doorsteps. The children--I screamed, I guess uncontrollably, and the children ran out shortly after I did, and they called, "Daddy, Daddy, get up. Please get up, Daddy." I recall going back in the house for a second to call someone--I don't even know who it was. At the time, I couldn't get through. I ran back out, and I kept calling to him, and the children were calling to him. I do recall, however, that when I first got out to him that there was another shot that was fired, and I remember dropping down to my knees again because I thought someone was trying to--to shoot me as well. By the time I ran back out the second time, neighbors had come out and were over at the house. There were a couple of people helping to put Medgar on a mattress, and to put him in a vehicle to take him to a hospital for treatment.
(Source: Justia US Law)
VIBE:
♫ I'll rise up
Rise like the day
I'll rise up
In spite of the ache
I will rise a thousand times again
And we'll rise up
High like the waves
We'll rise up
In spite of the ache
We'll rise up
And we'll do it a thousand times again ♫ — Rise Up, Andra Day
THE FREEDOM FIGHTER'S BOUNCE BACK
In the years following his murder, Myrlie endured two failed attempts to convict Beckwith of the crime. She made the decision in 1967 after the last mistrial to move her family to California. Once there she went back to college and earned her bachelor's degree in Sociology. Later that year she published a chronicle of Medgar's life entitled, "For Us, the Living."
In 1976 she remarried, to another civil rights activist, Mr. Walter Williams. They were married until his death in February of 1995 from cancer.
She led a very productive and full professional life as well. Upon graduating from Pomona College she went on to take a job in the Claremont Colleges university administration where she served as a Planning Director.
She served as vice-president at a New York-based advertising firm and as a community affairs executive for a Los Angeles oil company.
Continuing to serve the public, Myrlie was appointed by Hon. Tom Bradley, mayor of Los Angeles as the first black female Commissioner to the Board of Public Works in 1987. She served in this seat for the next eight years.
Returning to her roots with Medgar, Myrlie joined the NAACP Board of Directors in the 1990s. She ran for chair of the board in 1995 and took the lead in putting the NAACP back on solid financial ground.
She never neglected her efforts to continue to build on the legacy that she and Medgar were working so hard to build. She published her autobiography in 1999 after stepping down from her post at the NAACP in a book entitled "Watch Me Fly: What I Learned On The Way To Becoming The Woman I Was Meant To Be. In 2005 she went on to edit a book based on the writings her her slain husband Medgar Evers entitled, "The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero's Life and Legacy Through His Writings, Letters, and Speeches."
She has earned several honorary doctorates from colleges and universities around the country, including her and Medgar's alma mater Alcorn A&M College and famed HBCU Howard University. In 1998 Ms. Magazine named her "Woman of the Year," and Ebony magazine declared her to be one of the "100 Most Fascinating Black Women of the 20th Century."
At the second inauguration of President Barack Obama on January 21, 2013, Ms. Evers-Williams became the first woman and first non-clergy member to perform the invocation prayer. She was seventy-nine years old, still breaking barriers and making history, wielding her #BlackGirlMagic.
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"I have reached a point in my life where I understand the pain and the challenges; and my attitude is one of standing up with open arms to meet them all. Jim Crow is alive and it's dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, my friend, instead of a white robe." — Myrlie Evers-Williams
At the time of this post, Dr. Myrlie Evers-Williams, now eighty-nine years old, was seen at the 2023 NAACP Awards Ceremony looking as beautiful and full of life as ever. For this writer, she is the epitome of rising up from the ashes that were meant to destroy her and her family and soaring to heights that no level of hate could keep her from achieving.
Looking at SL through the "Eye of the Storm"
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