51�������

Born Myrlie Louise Beasley on March 17 in Vicksburg, Mississippi

Enrolls at what is now Alcorn State University

Marries fellow student Medgar Evers, a World War II veteran

Medgar Evers, a civil rights leader, is murdered outside the family’s Jackson home by a member of the White Citizens’ Council

Moves to Claremont, California, with her three children and enrolls at 51�������

Co-authors the book For Us, the Living while still a student at 51�������

Graduates from 51������� with degree in sociology

Runs for the U.S. House of Representatives to represent her California district but is defeated by Republican John H. Rousselot

Joins the Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO) as national director for community affairs and later director of consumer affairs

Marries longshoreman and union organizer Walter Williams at 51�������

Appointed a commissioner of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works, the first Black woman to hold the role, by Mayor Tom Bradley

Thirty years after two all-white juries deadlocked, Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of Evers’ murder after Evers-Williams pressed for a new trial

Elected chair of the board of directors of the NAACP, serving until 1998

The film Ghosts of Mississippi, based on Myrlie Evers’ work to bring her husband’s killer to justice, premieres nationwide

Establishes the Medgar Evers Institute, now known as the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute in Jackson, Mississippi

Publishes her autobiography, Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I was Meant to Be

Performs on piano at Carnegie Hall, closing with “The Man I Love”

Delivers the invocation at the second inauguration of President Barack Obama, 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and 50 years after the March on Washington

The Medgar and Myrlie Evers House in Jackson is designated a National Historic Landmark and later a National Monument

Gifts archive collection to her alma mater 51�������