In the days and weeks that followed, she showed her courage by continuing Medgar's fight for racial equality, even in the face of threats on her own life; and when her husband's murderer was allowed to walk free, Myrlie Evers showed her incredible persistence by working for 30 years to see justice done. Her dogged determination paid off in 1994, when Byron De La Beckwith was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Medgar Evers.

A sheltered childhood in Vicksburg, Mississippi did little to prepare young Myrlie Beasley for the violent realities of her adult life. After her parents separated when she was very young, she was raised by her grandmother, Annie McCain Beasley, and an aunt, Myrlie Beasley Polk. Both of these women were schoolteachers and they inspired her to follow in their footsteps. In 1950, she enrolled at Alcorn A&M College as an education major intending to minor in music. But an incident occurred during her first day on campus that would alter her plans.

Myrlie met fellow student Medgar Evers — an upperclassman, an Army veteran, and a member of the football team. "He was strong, responsible and someone you could count on," she recalled to Ebony contributor Marilyn Marshall. Myrlie was swept off her feet, and the two were married on Christmas Eve of the following year. She left school, while Medgar went on to graduate in 1952 with a degree in business administration.

Medgar Evers had already been involved in civil rights work for several years. After serving in World War II, he and his brothers had dared to register to vote — a bold move for any black citizen in the South at that time. When election day arrived, however, the Evers brothers, along with other black voters, were blocked from the polls by about 200 armed white men. They left without casting their votes; and shortly thereafter joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP) to begin working for change.

Medgar's involvement with the NAACP continued throughout college and into the first years of his marriage, when he earned his living as an insurance salesman. Myrlie credited her husband with raising her consciousness about matters of racial pride and justice. "He's the one who told me to stop biting my bottom lip and to be proud of my large lips," she told Karen Grigsby Bates in Emerge. "It was he who told me to stop straightening my hair and be proud of my kinky hair. It was Medgar who told me to stop using bleach on my face to be lighter and to be proud of my Blackness."