For Immediate Release
Tuesday, June 18, 1996
NAACP Chairperson Speaks to 5,000 Delegates and Guests at AFSCME Convention
Chicago, IL —Myrlie Evers-Williams, the chairperson of the National Board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), today told 5,000 delegates and guests to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) convention that she wished to "salute each and every one of you for your efforts and determination in seeing to it that America stays on the path of equality and justice."
In the 1950s, Medgar Williams and his wife, Myrlie, opened the first NAACP office located in Mississippi. In 1963, Medgar Evers was murdered in the doorway of their home in Jackson, and 31 years went by before his killer was brought to justice.
After having built successful careers in business, government, politics, and social causes, Evers-Williams remarried. She was widowed again, shortly after her election last year to the leadership of the NAACP.
Evers-Williams expressed outrage over the rash of recent church burnings throughout the south. "When will the madness stop, that is exemplified in our country by the burning of these churches," she said. "it is symptomatic of what is happening in this country, and of the racial hatred and prejudice we still have in our country. When will it stop?"
The NAACP is the nation's oldest civil rights organization. Since its founding in 1909, its struggles in the cause of civil and human rights have made America a better, stronger, fairer nation. In a gesture of support for the NAACP, AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee and Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy presented Evers-Williams with a check for $25,000.
The NAACP leader commended AFSCME for the support the support shown by the union's 1.3 million members. "Our two organizations -- AFSCME and the NAACP-- have combined their efforts in the continuing social struggle for equal rights for all," she said.
