MyrlieEversWilliamsI will be forever grateful to Ms. Myrlie Evers-Williams for providing the quote that occupies the top spot on the back of the book jacket for Inheriting the Trade. I am blessed and proud to know her and to call her my friend.

Tomorrow, October 27, 2009, the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee will bestow upon Ms. Evers-Williams the National Freedom Award. I encourage you to read a brief story about Myrlie Evers-Williams amazing life here.

As a young woman in Mississippi, with the encouragement of her family, Myrlie Beasley planned a life focused on music. After meeting and marrying Medgar Evers, the road she traveled from Jackson, Mississippi to California and Oregon, from being subjected to hateful and blatant racist terrorism to becoming a national civil rights leader, successful author, public speaker, and businesswoman couldn’t have been more different from what she anticipated her life would become.

Ms. Myrlie Evers-Williams is an inspiration everyone who believes in justice, healing, and hope.