Barrier Breakers: Myrlie Evers-Williams & William Winter

HOPE is proud to stand on the shoulders of legendary barrier breakers Civil Rights Activist and Hope Credit Union member-owner Myrlie Evers- Williams, and founding Hope Enterprise Corporation director, former Governor William Winter. 

The former chairwoman of the NAACP National Board of Directors, Evers-Williams is credited with spearheading the operations that restored the NAACP to its original status as the premier Civil Rights organization in America. She became the NAACP’s first chairperson emeritus in 1998, when she retired to establish the Medgar Evers Institute, now the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute.

Evers-Williams has been a force for civil rights since the 1960s. She and her late husband, Medgar, opened and managed the first NAACP Mississippi State Office. Their stand for justice would cost Medgar Evers his life; in 1963, Evers-Williams and the couple’s three children saw their husband and father assassinated in the driveway of the Evers’ home in Jackson. Evers-Williams and the children later relocated to California, where she continued to be a champion for justice and equality.

In addition to her service work, Evers-Williams enjoyed a successful professional career, holding leadership positions in business and education and earning acclaim as an author and public speaker. Active in politics, Evers-Williams was the first African American woman to head the Southern California Democratic Women’s Division and was convener of the National Women’s Political Caucus.

Evers-Williams holds 16 honorary degrees from leading colleges and universities and is a recipient of numerous civil rights, human rights, and community awards. Selected by President Barack Obama, she was the first layperson and first woman to deliver the inaugural invocation at a presidential inauguration.

Evers-Williams shares HOPE’s mission of moving people on the fringe of the American economy to the mainstream, and giving everyone an equal chance to prosper.

Throughout his public service and private sector careers, William Winter has been a champion of equal rights.

As the 58th governor of Mississippi (1980-84), Winter championed educational equality; public kindergarten was the cornerstone of his Education Reform Act of 1982. 

Winter was one of President Bill Clinton’s seven appointees to the President’s Advisory Board on Race. His involvement brought the first-ever Deep South dialogue event about racial reconciliation to the University of Mississippi in Oxford. Hailed as the single most successful event of the entire initiative by President Clinton, the event prompted the University of Mississippi to form the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation. The Institute, now a nonprofit headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi, promotes community building, youth involvement, and policy and civic engagement.

Winter celebrated HOPE’s mission in an address to the organization’s employees.

“There are certain things that everybody agrees on. Everybody wants their children to get the best education. Everybody wants to have a fair shot at a decent job where they can make a living. Everybody wants to live in a decent house on a safe street. And above all else, everybody wants to be treated with dignity and respect. Those are universal aspirations.

“What all of you [at HOPE] are doing is to create a society where people can see the realization of these basic aspirations and hopes. What HOPE is doing is the most important thing going on in America.”

“HOPE provides people with access to self-determination, and economic empowerment, and dignity. That is exactly what Medgar wanted.”
– Myrlie Evers-Williams, Civil Rights Activist