Alcorn State University in Mississippi announced that Myrlie Evers-Williams will be appointed scholar-in-residence at the university later this month.
Evers-Williams is a native of Vicksburg, Mississippi. She enrolled at Alcorn State in 1950. On the first day there she met her future husband, Medgar Evers. The couple married a year later. Medgar became the Mississippi state field director of the NAACP and was one of the leaders of the civil rights movement in the South. In 1963, he was gunned down by an assassin in the driveway of his home.
Myrlie Evers-Williams fought for 30 years and went through three trials to finally bring her husband’s murderer to justice. During this period she earned a bachelor’s degree at Pomona College in California, twice ran for Congress, and was co-founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus.
At Alcorn State, Evers-Williams will teach in the department of social sciences and develop a research center focused on social justice and civic engagement. She will also work on organizing her papers for donation to the university’s archives.
“My relationship with Alcorn State University is at the core of who I am,” Evers-Williams said. “I met and married my husband on the Alcorn campus. It means so much to me now to be able to continue our work.”