Evers-Williams, Myrlie (1933–)
Evers-Williams, Myrlie (1933–)
African-American civil-rights activist. Name variations: Myrlie Evers. Born Myrlie Beasley, 1933, in Vicksburg, Mississippi; raised by grandmother Annie McCain Beasley and an aunt, Myrlie Beasley Polk; attended Alcorn A&M College; graduate of Pomona College; m. Medgar Evers (civil-rights leader and field secretary of the Mississippi NAACP), 1951 (killed June 12, 1963); m. Walter Edward Williams (union activist), 1976 (died Feb 1995); children: (1st m.) 3.
After husband was assassinated by a racist sniper on the family doorstep in Jackson, MS (1963), struggled for over 30 years to convict his obvious killer (and endured hung juries in 2 trials) until the guilty verdict arrived in the trial of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith (1994); moved to California (mid-1960s); earned a degree in sociology; became women's chair of the Democratic Party in Southern California; named commissioner of Public Works for Los Angeles; elected chair of the NAACP board of directors (1995).
See also memoir (with Melinda Blau) Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be (Little, Brown, 1998); HBO movie "Southern Justice: The Murder of Medgar Evers" (1994).