The widow of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers will deliver the invocation at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration on Jan. 21.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee announced today that Myrlie Evers-Williams would deliver the prayer, reports the AP. It comes 50 years after her husband was gunned down in the driveway of his Mississippi home. The inauguration falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Evers-Williams is a distinguished scholar at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Miss. She was chairwoman of the NAACP from 1995 to 1998.
Inaugural organizers said the Rev. Louie Giglio of Atlanta’s Passion City Church will deliver the benediction for Obama’s swearing-in.
In a statement, Obama says Evers-Williams and Giglio represent ideals of justice, equality and opportunity that he pursues.
Rev. Rick Warren delivered the invocation during President Obama’s first Inauguration in 2009.
via EurWeb
