Evers-Williams pays homage to 'those who came before'

Myrlie Evers-Williams, 79, widow of slain civil rights icon Megdar Evers, was the first woman and the first layperson to deliver the invocation at a presidential inauguration.

Myrlie Evers-Williams gives the invocation at Monday's inaugural ceremony.(Photo: Porter Binks for USA TODAY)

WASHINGTON -- Myrlie Evers-Williams evoked the memories of ancestors whose visions "still inspire us'' as she delivered the invocation Monday at President Obama's second inauguration.

"One hundred and fifty years after the Emancipation Proclamation and 50 years after the March on Washington, we celebrate the spirit of our ancestors, which has allowed us to move from a nation of unborn hopes and a history of disenfranchised votes to today's expression of a more perfect union,'' she said.

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Evers-Williams, 79, widow of slain civil rights icon Megdar Evers and a native of Mississippi, was the first woman and the first layperson to deliver the invocation at a presidential inauguration.

Civil rights veterans praised the decision to choose Evers-Williams for the honor, especially this year, the 50th anniversary of major civil rights milestones. Medgar Evers was killed in 1963. That also was the year Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington, and the year four black girls were killed in a church bombing in Birmingham, Ala.

Frank Smith, who helped register blacks to vote in Mississippi in the 1960s, called Evers-Williams' presence on the national stage "symbolic.''

"It's important for people to reflect on the changes that the civil rights movement produced, the enormous changes in America,'' said Smith, director of the African American Civil War Memorial Museum in Washington.

During her four-minute invocation, Evers-Williams paid homage "to the vision of those who came before us and dreamed of this day." She expressed hope "that we recognize that their visions still inspire us.''

"They are a great power of witnesses — unseen by the naked eye, but all around us, thankful that their living was not in vain,'' she said.

Medgar Evers, buried a few miles away from the Capitol at Arlington National Cemetery, was field secretary for the NAACP in Mississippi when he was gunned down in his driveway in June 1963 after returning from a meeting. He had led a boycott of white businesses that discriminated against blacks and was involved in the fight to desegregate the University of Mississippi.

Evers-Williams, a civil rights activist in her own right, once headed the national NAACP. She is now a distinguished scholar at Alcorn University in Mississippi.

On Monday, she asked for blessings for the nation's leaders, those who serve in the military, "and those who contribute to the essence of the American spirit, the American dream.''

She also asked that Obama be granted "the will to act courageously, but cautiously when confronted with danger. And to act prudently but deliberately when challenged by adversity.''

Zipporah Posey, 12, left, of Laurel, Md. and Ma'Kayla Hunter, 15, of Fuquay Varina, N.C., are all smiles as they arrive on the National Mall Monday morning in Washington, DC, for the Inauguration. 
Eileen Blass, USA TODAY

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Last SlideNext Slide Source: http://www.theusalinks.com/2013/01/21/evers-williams-pays-homage-to-those-who-came-before/