Myrlie (Beasley) Evers-Williams

Ancestors

Descendants

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Biography

Myrlie (Beasley) Evers-Williams is Notable.

This profile is part of the Mound Bayou, Mississippi One Place Study.

Myrlie (Beasley) Evers-Williams was awarded the Spingarn Medal for outstanding achievement by an African American.

The only child of James Van Dyke Beasley and Mildred Washington was born Myrlie Louise Beasley on 17 March 1933 at her maternal grandmother's home in Vicksburg, Mississippi. She was raised by her paternal grandmother, Annie McCain Beasley, and an aunt, Myrlie Beasley Polk.^[1][2]

Myrlie married World War II veteran and civil rights activist Medgar Evers (1925 - 1963) on 24 December 1951.

Their children:

1. Darrell Kenyatta Evers (1950s - 2000s)
2. Reena Denise Evers
3. James Van Dyke Evers

They settled in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, a thriving Black community in northwest Mississippi founded by Isaiah Montgomery.

Three years after their marriage, Medgar Evers became the Mississippi field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Myrlie worked alongside him for a decade fighting for voting rights, equal access to public accommodations, the desegregation of public schools and the state university, and for equal rights for Mississippi's African American population. They became targets for white supremacists.^[1]

As prominent civil rights leaders in Mississippi, the Everses became high-profile targets for pro-segregationist violence and terrorism. In 1962, their home in Jackson was firebombed in reaction to Medgar’s organized boycott of downtown Jackson’s white merchants.

The violence reached its worst point the following year, when Medgar was gunned down by a sniper in front of his home. On the evening of June 11, 1963, President John F. Kennedy in a televised speech had pleaded for racial harmony and had announced his plan to submit new civil rights legislation to Congress, a plan which infuriated many segregationists. At about 12:30 a.m. on June 12, Medgar had just pulled into the driveway after a long day of work, when a shot from a 30.06 military rifle hit him in the back.

The rifle was recovered about 150 feet from the scene of the shooting, and on its scope were found the fingerprints of its owner, Byron De La Beckwith, a 42-year-old fertilizer salesman and an outspoken opponent of integration.^[3]

In spite of the evidence, two all-white juries deadlocked, acquitting the murderer. After his release, Myrlie and her children left Mississippi for California, where she went back to school. She co-wrote a book with William Peters about her husband, called For Us, the Living, (Doubleday & Company, 1967), intended to keep alive the memory of a courageous man and shine a light on the unjust system that allowed a coward to get away with his murder. Thirty years after the murder, 73 year old De La Beckwith was retried in 1994, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison, where he died.^[1][3]

Myrlie remarried in 1976 in Los Angeles County, California, to Walter Williams, who died in 1995.^[4][3] They had no children.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4} Wikipedia contributors, "Myrlie Evers-Williams," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Myrlie_Evers-Williams&oldid=1087023515 (accessed August 9, 2022).
2. ↑ 1940 Census: "1940 United States Federal Census"
   Year: 1940; Census Place: Vicksburg, Warren, Mississippi; Roll: m-t0627-02074; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 75-19
   Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 2442 #120376346 (accessed 9 May 2023)
   Myrlie Beasley (7), single granddaughter, in household of Annie Beasley (57) in Vicksburg, Warren, Mississippi. Born in Mississippi.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} John B. Padgett, "Myrlie Evers-Williams," Mississippi Writers Page, mwp.olemiss.edu, September 2002.
4. ↑ Marriage: "California, U.S., Marriage Index, 1960-1985"
   State of California. California Marriage Index, 1960-1985. Microfiche. Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento, California
   Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 1144 #5601721 (accessed 9 May 2023)
   Myrlie B Evers (43) marriage to Walter E Williams on 4 Jun 1976 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

See also:

• Wikipedia: Myrlie Beasley
• Biography of Myrlie Beasley Evers-Williams
• Myrlie Evers-Williams's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project
• "Pursuing the Past -- Myrlie Evers-Williams". Online NewsHour. PBS. April 23, 2002. Retrieved January 20, 2013.
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• African American Lives, (Oxford University Press, USA. 2004)
• Finkelman, Paul, ed., Encyclopedia of African American history: 1896-2005 from the Age of Segregation to the twenty-first century, (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007).
• Michele R. Wright, ed. Dear success seeker: wisdom from outstanding women, (New York: Atria Paperback, 2009)
• Myrlie and Medgar Evers Home and National Monument
• Wikidata: Item Q6948316, en:Wikipedia