Myrlie Evers-Williams
OXFORD, Miss. – Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, will join two other prominent Mississippians to discuss her late husband’s life and career at 5 p.m. Friday (April 5) in the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics at the University of Mississippi.
Evers-Williams rose to fame herself as a civil rights champion and national chair of the NAACP in the years following her husband’s assassination outside their home in Jackson 50 years ago.
“Medgar Evers’ Legacy” will be held in the Overby Center Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow in the building’s lobby.
Taking part in the discussion of Evers’ impact on the civil rights movement will be Leslie B. McLemore, who was a young activist with the NAACP at the time of Evers’ death. McLemore, a former member of the Jackson City Council, serves as director of the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute on Citizenship and Democracy at Jackson State University.
Jerry Mitchell, a prize-winning reporter at the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson whose investigative journalism led to the conviction of Evers’ assassin, will also be on the panel.
The program kicks off a regional conference for members of the Society of Professional Journalists, who are meeting in Oxford this weekend.
As field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi, Evers became one of the early leaders of the civil rights movement and was emerging as one of the key national figures when he was shot in June 1963. It took three trials and more than 30 years before his assassin, Byron De La Beckwith, was convicted in a dramatic trial in 1994.
Evers-Williams, who played an important role in developing the case against Beckwith, is a distinguished scholar in residence at Alcorn State University. She is chairman of the board of the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute. Evers-Williams also lectures and writes, and recently she delivered the invocation at the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
“This promises to be one of the most significant programs we’ve sponsored,” said Overby fellow Curtis Wilkie, who will moderate the discussion. “Medgar Evers’ work was cut short by his assassination, but his commitment and inspiration continued to be part of the spirit that drove the civil rights movement. We’re especially glad that Mrs. Evers-Williams will be able to be with us, and that we’ll be able to welcome back Leslie McLemore and Jerry Mitchell, who’ve appeared on Overby Center programs before.”
For more information or for assistance related to a disability, call 662-915-1692.