Dr. Eva L. Evans, a pioneering educator and the first Black female deputy superintendent of Lansing Public Schools, died on Tuesday, July 21.
Evans began her career in Lansing in 1965.
She developed several initiatives, including a local schools of choice program.
She created avenues for minority students to attend Michigan State University and Lansing Community College.
In the early 1970’s, Evans helped calm racial tensions during Lansing’s school desegregation era.
Months before the current wave of racial unrest that’s gripped the nation, Evans told WKAR that America still hasn’t learned from its history.
“The way power and people are divided in the United States…does the United States really mean what it says it is? Every generation, it seems we have to test that,” Evans said in 2019.
Eva Lois Evans was 85.