Civil rights leader comes to Columbia, speaks on race relations

The celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. continued Wednesday night in Columbia as Myrlie Evers-Williams spoke to a crowd of nearly 1,000 people.

Evers-Williams is a civil rights activist and former NAACP chairperson who has been working since the 1960s on preserving her late husband Medgar Evers’ legacy.

Even though her speech was more than a week after MLK day, leaders said it was timely because of the recent events in Ferguson.

Evers-Williams spoke about how Ferguson highlights the differences in race relations now compared to in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s time. She described racism in her childhood as a taboo topic.

“It was more of…less brutality than now,” Evers-Williams said.

She said over the years, there has been good progress made in the way of racial equality….until recently.

“But then, we are reawakened with Ferguson. With the recent killings, it’s almost as if we losing a part of that [progress] and coming back into the violent part of the struggle,” she said.

She said despite the violence, protests, and lootings that have ensued, the fight is far from over and it can still turn around.

“I believe strongly that your generation will have more impact on this country and race relations than anything else,” Evers-Williams said.

The event was sponsored by the Chancellor’s Diversity Initiative at the University of Missouri.