When
people are faced with overwhelming trauma in
their lives, some become
consumed by their difficulties, while others
emerge stronger for it.
In special circumstances, they may find
their destiny, and seek to
heal the world and make all of us stronger.
Myrlie
Evers-Williams and Sybrina Fulton are two
great women whose
achievements demand our attention. Although
their personal stories
are separated by five decades, these women
share parallel lives.
Thrust into a position of leadership for the
greater good of society,
they have used personal grief over the loss
of a loved one to become
agents for change.
Each
of these extraordinary women experienced
unthinkable tragedy: the
killing of a black man in their life who was
gunned down while still
young. In 2015, the two women met in person
for the taping of a video
for CNN and theGrio.
Evers-Williams
is the widow of Medgar Evers, the iconic
civil rights leader who
served as the field secretary for the NAACP
in Mississippi. On June
12, 1963, Evers, who fought against
discrimination and segregation
and led voter registration efforts, was assassinated
by a white supremacist named Byron De La
Beckwith, a founder of the
state’s White Citizens Council.
Evers,
37, was shot in the back while in his
driveway after coming from an
NAACP meeting. The Mississippi State
Sovereignty Commission, a state
agency that spied on the civil rights
movement and was complicit in
the death of civil rights workers, assisted
Beckwith’s lawyers.
Evers’ murder received national attention
and was a factor leading
to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of
1964.
For
the Evers family, the fear of Medgar’s
murder was ever present.
“Both Medgar and I knew the day would soon
be upon us when he would
be killed, and that last night that we had
together, I said, “I
can’t make it without you,” Evers-Williams
said. “And he told
me ‘You’re stronger than you think you
are.’”
Following
her husband’s death, Evers-Williams emerged
as a civil rights
leader in her own right, serving as
chairwoman of the NAACP
in 1995 and helping to revive what was then
a financially troubled,
debt-ridden civil rights organization. She
has continued the fight
for those things that were important to her
husband.
Evers-Williams
served on the NAACP board for 30 years and
was awarded the
organization’s Spingarn medal, served as
editor of “The
Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero’s Life
and Legacy Revealed
Through His Writings, Letters, and
Speeches”, and through the
establishment of the Medgar
and Myrlie Evers Institute,
she has kept his legacy alive. On January
21, 2013, she delivered the
invocation at President Obama’s second
inauguration, becoming the
first layperson and the first woman to serve
in that capacity.
Further,
Evers-Williams sought justice for Medgar
through Beckwith’s 1994
murder conviction, following two trials with
deadlocked all-white
male juries 31 years earlier. “All of us
have a job to do, and mine
has been to rear those three children, to be
a strong, loving but
strict mother, to give to society, to give
back to Medgar,” she
said.
Meanwhile,
not unlike Myrlie Evers-Williams, Sybrina
Fulton
found her calling through grief nearly 50
years later. Three years
ago, on February 26, 2012, Fulton’s son,
Trayvon Martin, was shot
to death by George Zimmerman, a
self-proclaimed neighborhood watch
volunteer in Sanford, Florida. Martin, 17,
was visiting his father,
and Zimmerman, who is a Latino of
Afro-Peruvian and German ancestry,
claimed Martin looked suspicious and killed
the black teen, invoking
self-defense. The police would not arrest
Zimmerman for several
weeks.
In
July 2013, a jury acquitted Zimmerman of
second-degree murder. The
case shone the national spotlight on the
killing of innocent, unarmed
African-Americans such as Martin, who was
armed with nothing more
than a pack of Skittles and an iced tea.
Sybrina
Fulton realized the need to fight not only
for justice for her own
son, but also for other families and their
children as well. “When
this initially happened to Trayvon, we
thought this was about
Trayvon,” Fulton said. Then, when she saw
how many lives were
touched by Trayvon’s death, she became a
voice for the voiceless,
like others before her. “We have to speak
out for those people,
just like Trayvon, and just like Dr. King,
and just like Medgar; they
were sacrifices for better lives in a better
world.”
Fulton
founded the Trayvon
Martin
Foundation,
and has reached out to others such as the
family of Michael Brown,
17, who was fatally shot by police in
Ferguson, Missouri, while
unarmed on August 9, 2014. Last year, she
testified before the United
Nations in Geneva on racial discrimination
in the United States.
In
addition, Fulton has spoken out against “Stand
Your Ground”
laws, which are often used to claim
self-defense by whites who shoot
African-Americans. Zimmerman’s lawyers did
not raise the stand your
ground defense at trial, but a juror
admitted the jury had discussed
the law before acquitting him. Further, the
judge’s
instructions
to the jury included mention of the law.
In
the eyes of many, these laws have ushered in
an open season on black
men - and
women.
“It just amazes me how God is using me to go
from that average
life, and using me to be a vessel to speak
to so many people. I would
not voluntarily give my son’s life, and the
loss of his life was
because of the color of his skin. I feel
like I just have to do my
part,” Fulton said.
Despite
the half century separating the death of
Medgar Evers and Trayvon
Martin, the grieving women-turned-activists
have lived and struggled
under similar circumstances. And the more
America has changed, the
more it has remained the same.
Whether
during the Jim Crow era or 21st century
America, the lives of black
people have been under siege, their bodies
devalued. Then and now,
African-Americans have faced lynching at the
hands of white men,
whether police officers, self-proclaimed
cops, vigilantes, mobs or
domestic terrorists who were empowered to
take matters into their own
hands.
History
is about change, and yet it represents a
continuum as well, with
injustice likely to repeat itself,
particularly if society fails to
heed its lessons. As we celebrate progress,
we must also acknowledge
the relentless nature of injustice, and the
need to remain vigilant
in order to eradicate it.
The
two black women both have faced a fight
against what the Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr. called unjust laws. The
regime of Jim Crow
segregation was an attempt to block the full
freedom of black
Americans and stifle their aspirations,
backed by the authority of
the government and the courts, and secured
through the threat of
violence. People such as Medgar Evers were
willing to take the risk
of becoming martyrs to break down those
arbitrary, oppressive laws.
However,
today the country is witnessing a backlash
against progress, with a
rollback of the civil rights legislation of
the 1960s, restrictions
on the right to vote, and gun laws that
endanger black lives such as
that of Trayvon Martin. Unjust laws have
turned America into a nation
of entrenched poverty and heightened
economic inequality,
unparalleled gun homicide and the largest
prison population in the
world.
Meanwhile,
in the midst of a nascent, multiracial
#BlackLivesMatter movement led
by black women, Myrlie Evers-Williams and
Sybrina Fulton continue the
struggle and teach a new generation of
leaders. “Life does go on,
but we must never forget that we cannot stop
at one point, that it
calls us to continue,” said Evers-Williams.
“And there are young
people out there who need to be reached, who
need to know what this
is about, and who will eventually dedicate
themselves to justice, to
peace, to equality and to love.”
During
Women’s History Month, we are reminded that
civil rights martyrs
become catalysts for new movements. And
great women lead and
transform the world.
