University of Illinois hosts Evers’ widow at celebration
URBANA — The University of Illinois will mark the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation with a speech by the widow of Medgar Evers.
Civil rights activist Myrlie Evers will speak Wednesday night at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on the Urbana-Champaign campus.
The News-Gazette in Champaign says Evers keynote address will be part of a larger celebration that concludes a series of community events marking the sesquicentennial.
Evers last month delivered the invocation at President Obama’s inauguration.
Medgar Evers was an activist who worked to end segregation and gain voting rights for blacks in Mississippi. He was murdered in 1963.
Myrlie Evers was chairwoman of the NAACP from 1995 to 1998.
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