Heidi M. Przybyla

USA TODAY

Myrlie Evers-Williams, wife of the slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, is calling on young Americans and those apathetic about voting to “take sides” in the 2016 election to stop a racist tide that’s “raising its ugly face in America.”

And she’s announcing she's on Hillary Clinton's side.

“I’ve lived long enough to see the ugliest of it all,” Evers-Williams said in an interview with USA TODAY in which she endorsed the former first lady.

“It’s time to call out and say, take sides. You cannot sit back and observe. Become involved and do what you feel is best. Do not allow evil to overtake this America of ours,” said Evers-Williams, approaching her 83rd birthday.

Evers-Williams' late husband is Medgar Evers, a prominent leader in the Mississippi civil rights movement in the 1950s and early 1960s. Her official endorsement comes on the eve of the Mississippi primary as Clinton continues her sweep of Southern states dominated by black voters. While Clinton is winning the black vote by huge margins, turnout in states including South Carolina was significantly lower than in the 2008 primary election.

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Her slain husband had worked on desegregating schools and public buildings and trying to secure voting rights. He was shot in front of the family house in Jackson on June 12, 1963, in front of his wife and three children — just hours after President John F. Kennedy, in a nationally televised address, called on Congress to pass a civil rights bill.

“I was a young woman afraid of everything that was going on, afraid I was going to lose him but knowing full well he had committed his life to equality for all people,” said Evers-Williams, speaking from Jackson.

Evers-Williams worked alongside her husband in the civil rights movement and continued his work after his death. She was one of the first African-American women to run for Congress and served as an NAACP chairperson.

“There was a joyous intermission where we thought we were moving forward. Lo and behold the ugly face of racism has appeared in this country,” said Evers-Williams.

“I don’t know whether, at this point, to become so angry or to dissolve in tears and sadness over where we are today,” she said. “I see us sliding backward and it hurts terribly, because I and so many others, and women in particular, have fought battles many young people don’t know about,” she said.

Evers-Williams wanted the emphasis to be on her support for Hillary Clinton. Perhaps the most important role Clinton would fulfill as president, she said, is naming Supreme Court justices who will defend the rights of all Americans.

Throughout the interview, Evers-Williams stressed that the entire Medgar Evers family, including all of his children, are behind Clinton.

It was a subtle dig at her brother-in-law. Earlier this month, Charles Evers, Medgar’s brother, endorsed Donald Trump for president. He praised Trump’s business pedigree. “I haven’t seen any proof of him being a racist,” Evers said.

Brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers endorses Trump

Asked if she has a response, Evers-Williams laughed. “It’s not printable,” she said.

“I am saddened by the press connecting Medgar’s life and death to his brother and his brother’s endorsement of Trump,” she said. “It reads as though perhaps Medgar would have felt that way. The two men were and are as different as night and day,” said Evers-Williams. “I have nothing to do with him or his opinions.”

Evers-Williams repeatedly expressed her disappointment in the state of race relations in America. The rising racial angst is demonstrated by a Republican primary election featuring anti-immigrant language and a front runner who seemed to equivocate in rejecting the endorsement of white supremacist David Duke.

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Evers-Williams said the rights of a number of groups in the U.S. are at risk, and it’s being driven by economic anxieties and demagoguery.

In a swipe at Trump, she cited “a category of person who is self-centered, who will be representative of only a select group of people, whose morals I question.” She added: “I find the debates that have been taking place on the Republican side to be disgusting.”

“Perhaps it’s just the human psyche that says, when we make a few steps forward, there’s always someone there who attempts to move us backwards” said Evers-Williams.

Watching the current election, she said, “is almost more than I can take.”

Elections 2016 | USA TODAY Network