Introduction
African-American activist Myrlie Evers-Williams was born Myrlie Louise Beasley in Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1933. While a student at Alcorn A&M College, she met World War II veteran Medgar Evers, who would become her husband and the Mississippi field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). After her husband was shot to death by a white supremacist in 1963, Evers-Williams pushed for the killer’s conviction, finally achieving justice in the 1990s. She was named chairperson of the NAACP board of directors in 1995, and worked to restore the image of the venerable organization. Afterward, she established the Medgar Evers Institute in Jackson, Mississippi, and penned her autobiography.