Evers-Williams, whose activist role has been played through business, government and social causes, spoke to the crowded room as part of the Third Annual Rosalyn Carter Distinguished Lecture Series, sponsored by the Institute of Women's Studies. She highlighted two current events as a starting point to begin discussing the current plight of African Americans, race relations in America and the problems, challenges and questions that these issues and events raise. "We have been surprised at the issues in this country, and two have been in our minds: [The Million Man March on Oct. 16] and--I'm sick of saying it--the Simpson verdict." She then challenged the media to see beyond these topics and "look at all the positive things in the past months."
Elected chairperson of the NAACP in February, Evers-Williams reflected on past events in her own life and the challenges African Americans have faced in this country. "As I look over the audience, some may be my age and some are younger. You may not know or feel what's gone on in this country.
"As a child in Vicksburg, Miss., I knew there was a place for me and my kind and I was not to go beyond that. My family encouraged exploration within certain limits ... I had a feeling it shouldn't be that way ... when I looked at my ragged textbooks and walked miles and miles passing clean white schools on my own way to school. When I think of how we worked to have decent homes and how we couldn't try on shoes or hats because we somehow contaminated those goods--it didn't come across as the way things should be."
Yet, Evers-Williams said that if it weren't for her school, she "didn't know where [she] would be" and shared the words of a Vietnam veteran she met in California: "You must reach for the same stars everyone reaches for and break through those barriers." This was encouraging and frightening for Evers-Williams, because "you simply didn't attack such a large power structure then."
Discussing the struggles of African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s, Evers-Williams commended "the brave and strong people who put their lives and livelihood on the line so we could all register and vote." Evers-Williams own husband, Medgar Evans, was assassinated during the civil rights movement in Mississippi in 1963. After 31 years and two hung juries, a third jury found the original suspect guilty of murder in 1994.
But, Evers-Williams said, something happened a few years down the line: "We became comfortable ... we did not want to face the fact that America is America. We forgot how to talk to each other, we smiled, we were admitted here and there, we were no longer the spook in the door, we got offices with two windows instead of one ... but the tragedy was that we forgot to hold on to the gains we made. When you forget, something else comes to fill that gap."
That gap could be filled with race hatred, Evers-Williams said, "injected into a trial because of a verdict. What I'm saying to you is that it should not be a surprise that racism still exists in America. Here we are today, a disappointment because we thought that somewhere in the giving, we would not have to do it again."
There is one thing, Evers-Williams said, that she finds the most disturbing. "Little did we know, even in the 1980s, that we would find human beings so polarized on college campuses, that dorms, campuses, words and deeds would drive a wedge between us, that we would find a Congress determined to put the clock back and a Supreme Court that is no longer friendly. We find challenges today to take us back to where we were in the 1950s and 1960s--that's what disturbs me the most."
These challenges should "start us talking again and get us to be honest with ourselves and each other to find solutions," Evers-Williams said. "We have gone through so many changes in this country. We have seen hatred come to a force we hoped would never happen. We must deal with it."
Before concluding her speech, Evers-Williams discussed the decision of the NAACP not to endorse the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. "We believe in those goals the people say this march will do. The NAACP, in its 86 years, has focused on the same things ... yes, it is good for men to come together, but we are an inclusive organization ... there are certain things this organization does not support, and that's that." Evers-Williams said that individual branches of the NAACP were welcomed to participate in the march as individuals but were not allowed to use NAACP funds "because we are trying to keep doors open."
Evers-Williams stressed one theme in conclusion: perseverance. "If I had not persevered over some 30 years, the man I know who killed my husband would still be free. When the jury found him guilty it was because of my perseverance and that of others. You became freer the moment that verdict came in because my husband did not die in vain. He believed in his country, and now I can say that it believed in him.
"We must register, vote, and we need fairer representation. I won this position by one vote. It does make a difference. We are joined together whether we want to be or not ... my forefathers struggled and bled to make this country what it is today. We need to work together to keep it as it is now."
Evers-Williams is the author of For Us, The Living, a book based on her late husband's life and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s. She has served in several political capacities for the state of California, including her candidacy in 1970 for the 24th Congressional District, in which she won 38 percent of the vote, and as the first black woman to serve as commissioner on the Board of Public Works in Los Angeles in 1987. She has also worked for several businesses, including the New York firm of Seligman and Latz, Inc. as vice-president for advertising and publicity from 1973-75 and the Atlanta Richfield Company as national director for community affairs.
-- Danielle Service