Four Episcopal churches in Jackson, Mississippi will come together for their annual “Liturgy of Racial Reconciliation Commemorating the Life and Legacy of Medgar Wiley Evers” at 4 p.m. Sunday at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Cathedral.
Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of Medgar Evers, will be the guest speaker. The noted civil rights activist and former NAACP president currently lives on the campus of Alcorn State University, where she is a distinguished scholar-in-residence. She also serves as chairwoman of the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute, with the mission of championing civil rights with a focus on history, education and reconciliation, especially among young people.
Judy Barnes, a member of St. Alexis Episcopal Church in downtown Jackson, said the service was the idea of Bishop Duncan Gray III of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi, who activated an anti-racism task force in 2010 and wanted to acknowledge several upcoming 50th anniversaries in Mississippi’s civil rights history.
These include the Freedom Riders activism in Jackson, James Meredith’s admission to the University of Mississippi, the assassination of Evers, the murders of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia and the passage of the Voting Rights Act.