Myrlie Evers-Williams
#198,700 Most Popular
About
African-American civil rights activist who served as Chairwoman of the NAACP and sought justice for three decades for the murder of her first husband, who was also a civil rights leader.
Before Fame
She began working for the NAACP in 1954 with her husband, who was the field secretary at the time. They fought for voting rights and desegregation in Mississippi.
Trivia
She delivered the invocation at the second inauguration of President Barack Obama, being the first woman and first layperson to do so.
Family Life
She was married to Medgar Evers from 1951 until his murder in 1963. She married Walter Williams in 1975 and they remained married until his death in 1995.
Associated With
Whoopi Goldberg played her in the film Ghosts of Mississippi, which dramatized the events of her husband's assassination.
