Evers-Williams on equality, 50 years later
Equality in America has made great strides in the 50 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but there is still more to accomplish, civil rights activist Myrlie Evers-Williams said Tuesday in San Diego.
“I am standing before you very, very proud to see the advances that we have made in this country, but also aware that there is yet still so much to be done,” Evers-Williams said to about 1,400 hiring professionals at a conference held by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina on Harbor Island.
Evers-Williams, 81, the first woman to chair the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, recalled her childhood in segregated Mississippi, including the limitations her parents and grandparents felt when it came to their careers. Born to a family of teachers, Evers-Williams told the standing-room only audience that her parents believed that excellence would move you forward, with limits, in a society that did not embrace excellence because of race.
“I was also taught not to rock the boat,” she said. “You work to excel within the place that has been defined for you.”
That’s changed since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces Title IIV of the act, which prohibits discrimination in the workplace.
“People began to feel better, people began to challenge even more, and I think about all those times when we were told you can’t because of the color of your skin,” said Evers-Williams, who delivered the invocation last year at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. “The laws of the past have to be preserved, the civil rights laws that we have, have to be kept and strengthened.”
Evers-Williams also recalled the night her husband, famed civil rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated by white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith in their driveway in Jackson. Evers was getting out of his car during the wee hours of the morning on June 12, 1963, just after President John F. Kennedy delivered an address on civil rights in which he proposed what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Medgar Evers knew the importance of Kennedy’s speech and wanted to make sure his children saw it live.
“He had called home and said ‘be sure you let the children watch President Kennedy’s presentation,’ Of course, they did,” Evers-Williams said. “But they knew the sound of their father’s car, and shortly thereafter they jumped up and said ‘Daddy’s home, Daddy’s home,’ and at that moment, the blast of that rifle was fired.”
Evers-Williams said medical professionals told her that the bullet, which hit Evers in the back, should have killed him instantly. Instead, he lived another 45 minutes, enough time for Evers to be turned away from one hospital because of his race. A second hospital admitted Evers before he passed away.
“He was strong enough to say ‘turn me loose,’” Evers-Williams said. “I think about that today. Turn me loose into a future that can be bright for each and every one of us, regardless of the color of our skin.”