Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be Book

As the first full-time chairman of the NAACP and popular speaker, as a committed activist and the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, as a powerful businesswoman breaking racial and gender barriers in corporate boardrooms and municipal government, Myrlie Evers-Williams is one of the most respected African-Americans in this country. Her dignity and perseverance in bringing her husband's killer to justice - a battle she waged for more than thirty years - have made her an inspiration and role model for millions of women of all ages and races.

Yet few people know the private side of this most remarkable of public lives, a side that Myrlie Evers-Williams shares for the first time in WATCH ME FLY. Here is a moving and vivid portrait of a childhood within a family of proud, determined Mississippi women; of the harrowing dangers her family faced during the civil rights struggle; of her family faced during the civil rights struggle; of her efforts as a single mother to raise three children while attending college, efforts that left her battling depression; of her opening her heart to another wonderful man, only to lose him to cancer; and of her path from business and civic careers to her brilliant leadership of the NAACP through scandal to newfound vitality.

WATCH ME FLY is not just a traditional memoir, however, but what Myrlie Evers-Williams calls an "instructive autobiography," a book that links her memories to the wisdom she has gained over the years. With the warmth and practicality of a best friend and the savvy guidance of an extraordinary leader, she writes about financial survival, single parenting, the secrets of a successful relationship, building career, corporate gamesmanship, and aging.

Through fascinating, sometimes tragic, sometimes joyous times of Myrlie Evers-Williams's life, we share in this great woman's journey through history and to her discovery of the woman she was meant to be.