Myrlie Evers is unsure of her reaction in the 1960s if someone had told her that she would live to witness a Black woman becoming a major contender for the presidency.
However, the civil rights activist is aware of her reaction if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency in November. She and her husband were the target of death threats when they attempted to register Black voters in Mississippi some years ago. “‘Hip! Hip! Hooray!'” she told reporters. “‘It’s about time.'”
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Evers was asked what would happen if Harris is defeated by former president Donald Trump.
“It would be a sad day for me,” she said after pausing for a moment to gather her thoughts. “I’d have to say to myself: ‘It’s not over. It’s just beginning.’ It would be wake-up time.”
Declaring that Harris “embodies the values that my husband Medgar Evers dedicated his life to − justice, equality, and the belief that America can and should be better,” she just announced her intention to publicly back the Democratic contender for president.
President Joe Biden bestowed upon him the highest civilian award in the country, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously in May.
The Democratic campaign’s Black media director, Jasmine Harris, stated, “In spite of the immense cruelty of Jim Crow and the constant threat of violence against his life and his family’s, Medgar Evers exemplified the best in humanity.”
“As someone who grew up immersed in the ideals of the Civil Rights movement, Vice President Harris is humbled and honored to earn the support of the family of Medgar Evers.”
Kamala Harris was originally introduced to Evers by California Representative Maxine Waters in 2010 while the latter was a candidate for California attorney general. “I’m an admirer” of Harris, Evers said. “It takes a pretty strong person to step out into a crowd that may or may not be friendly and put yourself on the line for something that you believe in. I think she has done that.”
Although it is not surprising, her support for Harris is still a testament to her ground-breaking candidacy as one of the few pioneers of the 1960s civil rights movement still alive, a movement that wasn’t always quite aware of the contributions made by women.
“As she went along, Evers acknowledged that she was speaking as “an old-timer” and that she had heard complaints along the road that women shouldn’t be participating in politics. She has witnessed this shift in perspective, with the first woman of color to be nominated for president, the first Black woman serving on the Supreme Court, and two Black women predicted to win Senate seats in November.
If Lisa Blunt Rochester wins in Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks wins in Maryland, there will be two Black female senators serving in the Senate simultaneously for the first time.
In a Zoom interview, Evers stated from her retirement community close to Claremont, California, “I am simply pleased beyond control to see the number of women that are stepping out with no assurances that they will win but who … step out and say, ‘I’m going to work for this democracy.'”
“We are living in a country that quite frankly needs all of the help that it can get, not only to survive but to grow, to keep our land free.”
When her husband was assassinated in Mississippi by a white supremacist gunman, he was a young mother of three and the target of his work as the organization’s first field secretary. In 1963, that happened.
She battled to prosecute his murderer for thirty years. His assassin was given a life term in jail in 1994; he passed away there in 2001.
In addition, Evers presided over the NAACP as its first female chair. She made history in 2013 when she spoke the invocation at a presidential inauguration, being the first woman and layperson to do so after President Barack Obama was sworn in for a second term.
Even though she’s gotten older and less strong, she still doesn’t want to give up battling.
“We’ll have quite an election night on Nov. 5,” By the end of the interview, she made a prediction. Next, bidding adieu, she said, “Keep the fires burning!”
