Betty Bobo Pearson

ERIE ELIZABETH BOBO PEARSON (Betty) died peacefully after a brief illness on May 26, 2026, at the University Retirement Community in Davis, California, where she had lived since 2008. Nine days earlier she had celebrated her 104th birthday with family and friends.

Betty grew up on a farm in Bobo, Mississippi, surrounded by four generations of her family. She credited her paternal grandmother with teaching her that all people are equal and deserve respect regardless of skin color. This belief became a guiding principle of her life.

As a student at the University of Mississippi, Betty led a movement for better pay and working conditions for Black laundresses who labored in a basement with no air conditioning. In her senior year, she wrote an essay titled “Why the Schools Should Be Integrated,” which won her a scholarship to Columbia University. After days of arguing with her father, who refused to let her move “up North,” she joined the United States Marines in the fall of 1943. She was promoted to Second Lieutenant and spent the war years at the San Diego Naval Base. She later said it was one of the most important experiences of her life, because it brought her in contact with people from across the country and from all walks of life.

In 1947, Betty married Bill Pearson, who farmed near Webb, Mississippi. Two years later they welcomed their daughter, Erie Corley Pearson.

The early years of their marriage coincided with pivotal events in the civil rights movement, including the 1954 Supreme Court decision to outlaw school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, and - much closer to home - the 1955 trial for the murder of Emmett Till, which took place at the courthouse in Summer, Mississippi, where Bill had grown up. Bill’s uncle owned the local newspaper and gave Betty and her college friend Florence Mars press passes. They attended every day of the trial, and other than Mamie Till and the wives of the accused, were the only women present. After the defendants were acquitted, Betty said none of her white friends ever asked her about the trial.

Betty continued her work for racial justice during the tumultuous 1960’s. She joined the NAACP, and after passage of the Voting Rights Act, made sure the farm’s Black employees were able to vote. She and Bill also befriended many civil rights attorneys and others who had come from across the country to support the cause; many became lifelong friends.

In 1965 Betty was named to the Mississippi Council of Human Relations, and three years later was appointed to the Mississippi State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. When her father questioned her decision to accept the appointment, she told him, “You have always taught me to stand up for what I believe in, and that is what I am doing.”

Betty was one of nine civil rights activists featured in the 2003 documentary Standing on Our Sisters’ Shoulders, written and directed by Laura Lipson and produced by Joan Sadoff, which was screened at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to a standing ovation. Later she commented that she had always been tolerated despite her views, and that event was the first time she had been celebrated for her views. Her life was also chronicled in the 2016 biography Delta Rainbow by Sally Palmer Thomason with Jean Carter Fisher.

In 2006, Betty was named co-chair of the biracial Emmett Till Commission, which was formed to recognize the miscarriage of justice in the Till trial and to pursue racial reconciliation. On October 2, 2007, she and co-chair Robert Grayson read a formal apology to the family of Emmett Till on the steps of the Sumner courthouse. Their work helped lead to the founding of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center and, later, the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, which invite visitors to learn about this history and its enduring significance.

After moving to University Retirement Community to be near her daughter and her daughter’s family, Betty was elected president of the Resident Council and became the first resident to serve on its Board of Directors. In 2015 at the age of 93, she was presented with the California Resident of the Year Award by LeadingAge California, the state’s leading nonprofit advocate for high-quality senior living and care.

More recently, Betty was honored as a Point of Light by the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, which opened in 2017. She was indeed a point of light for all who knew her: quick to laugh and to join any new adventure, outspoken and opinionated but with a unique ability to express her views without alienating those who disagreed with her. A formidable role model as well as a loving wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, and friend, she lives in the hearts of the countless people touched by her compassion and spirit.

Betty was predeceased by her brother, Robert E. Bobo, Jr., and by her parents, Robert E. Bobo, Sr, and Lenora Olive Corley. She is survived by her daughter, Erie Pearson Vitiello and Erie’s husband Michael Vitiello; her granddaughter, Elizabeth Vitiello and her wife Janelle Ruley; and her grandson, James Vitiello and his partner Jesse Burdick; her nieces Betty Bobo Adkins and her husband Marty and Charlotte M. Wrather and her husband Chris; and her nephews Bob Bobo III and his wife Candy, Kirk Bobo and his wife Anne Craig, Jack Bobo and his wife Mary Martha, and Joel Bobo and his wife Leslie.

A Celebration of Life will be held at the University Retirement Community in Davis on August 14 from 2-4pm. A memorial service will take place in Mississippi at a future time. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, P.O. Box 405, Tutwiler, MS 38963, or the Southern Poverty Law Center, 400 Washington Avenue, Montgomery, AL 36104.