Medgar Evers’ Widow May Seek Top NAACP Post
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BALTIMORE — The wife of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers confirmed Friday she has been asked to consider becoming chairwoman of the NAACP, which has been beleaguered by financial woes and power struggles.
Myrlie Evers-Williams, 62, hasn’t decided if she will run, but said she knew “Medgar would be in utter turmoil and disgust with the way things are going.”
“The association is in a precarious condition, and it has to be addressed soon,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in Bend, Ore.
She said her decision to seek the chairmanship will be based on the health of her current husband, Walter, who has cancer. She did not say which or how many board members had asked her to run.
The 64-member board of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People holds its annual meeting in New York on Feb. 18, at which the board will choose a chairman. William F. Gibson has been reelected chairman every year since 1985, when he replaced Kelly Alexander Sr., who died.
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