Alcorn’s Myrlie Evers to speak at Obama inauguration
Alcorn State, Miss. (January 8, 2013) – Alcorn’s Myrlie Evers has accepted President Barack Obama’s invitation to deliver the invocation at his public inauguration on January 21. Evers, a champion for civil rights and the wife of civil rights martyr Medgar Wiley Evers ’52, is the first layperson chosen to deliver such a prominent prayer.
Evers was formally introduced to the Alcorn faculty at the 2011 Founders Day Convocation as the Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence.
President M. Christopher Brown II highlighted the tremendous opportunity Alcorn’s students and faculty have to interact with Evers and participate with her in once-in-a-lifetime lectures and archival research projects. “Words are inadequate to express our excitement about Evers participation in our President’s inauguration,” says President Brown.
Evers attended Alcorn A&M College from 1949 to 1952 when she married Medgar Evers. Evers, a native of Vicksburg, Mississippi, spends her time at Alcorn offering seminars in the Department of Social Sciences and preparing her archival papers for library deposit. Additionally, she travels throughout Mississippi and beyond offering lectures and public discussions on her portfolio of work.
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Alcorn State University is a premier comprehensive land-grant university that develops diverse students into globally-competitive leaders, and applies scientific research through collaborative partnerships which benefit the surrounding communities, state, nation and world.
