Myrlie Evers-Williams on 'super human strength' of Medgar 50 years after murder
theGRIO VIDEO - Myrlie Evers-Williams remembers that night her husband Medgar was shot on the couple's driveway like it just happened. Last month, she revisited her former home in Jackson, Mississippi, where 50 years ago today, a White Supremacist killed him...
“That bullet should have killed him instantly, at least that’s what the doctor said.”
Myrlie Evers-Williams remembers that night her husband Medgar was shot on the couple’s driveway like it just happened. Last month, she revisited her former home in Jackson, Mississippi, where 50 years ago today, a White Supremacist killed him. Medgar was just 37.
The New York Times described the shooting as “one of the most notorious events in the violence that marked the civil rights era. ”
TheGrio.com followed Evers-Williams through that house, where she shared her memories of Medgar as a father, activist and family man.
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“To be shot like that and still have the strength,” Evers-Williams recalls of Medgar’s struggle. “Even though he was falling, to move forward from his car to my car and pull himself around my car and fall at the bottom of the steps. It took super human strength.”
Reflecting for herself and being asked to reflect on her husband’s legacy is a constant thread in Evers-Williams’ life. She told theGrio.com’s Todd Johnson November’s election was not a good sign for the direction the country is headed. And it has nothing to do with the re-election of President Barack Obama.
“No I am not satisfied,” Evers told theGrio in Jackson last month. “How can you be? When you watch people attempting to register to vote as in this last election and all kinds of barriers are put up to keep them from voting. We’ve dealt with that issue for years and years and years and years and it’s still here with us in a different form, perhaps, but it’s still here.”
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Evers continued:
“Look at jobs today. Look at the workplace as a whole with…the subtle segregation that we find…”
The Evers home is now owned by nearby Tougaloo College and is now a museum dedicated to his life and works.
Follow theGrio’s Todd Johnson on Twitter @rantoddj
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