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Guide to the W. Hazaiah Williams Papers
MS 209
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Title: W. Hazaiah Williams papers
Dates: 1950-1996
Collection number: MS 209
Creator:
Williams, W. Hazaiah, 1930-1999
Creator:
Graduate Theological Union. Center for Urban-Black Studies
Collection Size:
11.75 linear feet
(10 boxes + 1 oversized box)
Repository:
African American Museum & Library at Oakland (Oakland, Calif.)
Oakland, CA 94612
Abstract: The W. Hazaiah Williams Papers consists of the administrative files of the Center for Urban-Black Studies and assorted subject
files, photographs, notebooks, and printed material documenting the career of theologian, civil rights activist, and educator
W. Hazaiah Williams.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
No access restrictions. Collection is open to the public.
Materials are for use in-library only, non-circulating.
Permission to publish from the W. Hazaiah Williams papers must be obtained from the African American Museum & Library at Oakland.
W. Hazaiah Williams papers, MS 209, African American Museum & Library at Oakland, Oakland Public Library. Oakland, California.
Processed by Sean Heyliger, June 14, 2017.
Biography / Administrative History
Theologian, civil rights activist, and educator William Hazaiah Williams Jr. (1930-1999) was born on May 14, 1930 in Columbus,
Ohio the youngest of six children to Rev. W. Hazaiah Williams Sr. and Cora Leon Williams. His father was a Methodist minister,
who was the first to receive a master’s degree from Howard University, and he assertively preached against racial segregation
which led the church relocating him from a parish with 3,000 members to one with just 25. William Hazaiah Williams Jr. attended
schools in Columbus as a child before the family moved to Detroit, Michigan where he graduated from Northern High School in
1947. He attended Adrian College for two years, where he was elected class president his sophomore year and held a weekly
radio program. In 1950, he transferred to Wayne State University where he majored in biology and sociology, graduating with
his degree in 1952. Three years later he earned a Master of Theology from Boston University’s School of Theology.
Following his graduation in 1955, he moved to San Francisco, California where he became the minister of religious education
at the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples at the invitation of prominent theologian and minister Howard Thurman. A year
later he was ordained as a minister at the South Berkeley Community Church, but his standing as a minister was later revoked
by the Congregational Church, which led him to found The Church for Today in Berkeley, California, a multicultural, interdenominational
church where he was minister for over forty years until his death. In 1967, he founded the Alamo Black Clergy, an interdenominational
consortium of Black ministers in the East Bay that advocated for civil rights, and the East Bay Conference on Race, Religion,
and Social Justice. That same year he was elected to the Berkeley Board of Education (1967-1975) where he eventually became
president of the school board and advocated for multicultural education and teacher training and the further racial integration
of the Berkeley schools.
In the fall of 1968, the Graduate Theological Union approached the Alamo Black Clergy and began preliminary talks to discuss
“the problem of minorities and particularly of the Black community in relation to theological education.” A committee of students,
laity, faculty, and the heads of Graduate Theological Union institutions proposed a center for Black and urban studies be
established that would provide classes and programs that served all the institutions of the Graduate Theological Union. In
December 1968, Rev. W. Hazaiah Williams was recruited to provide leadership to develop a Center for Urban-Black Studies and
immediately began teaching a course, “Practicum in the Black Situation,” during the Winter quarter.
In May 1969, Rev. Williams submitted a prospectus for The Center for Urban-Black Studies which envisioned a theological center
that would aggressively meet the needs of Black clergy and the Black community. The Center would provide a foundation in the
history and theology of the Black church to seminary students at the member institutions of the Graduate Theological Union,
continuing education to Black clergymen, and also implement programs that would allow the church to respond to the need for
skills development, leadership training, religious perception, and interpretation.
Rev. Williams was officially appointed the director of the Center on January 15, 1969 and he rapidly implemented an ambitious
program for the Center. The Center offered seven courses and a number of programs that addressed the need for the Black church
and ministers to take a leading role in civil rights and Black liberation theology. Dr. James Cone delivered the first annual
Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture Series in June 1969, and the Center offered courses such as RS 523 The Pastor as Community
Strategist and RS 514 The Pastor as Revolutionary that sought to combine the role of activist and minister. Throughout the
1970s, the Center hosted the Black Odyssey Festival, a three day festival dedicated to Black theology and community outreach,
and its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture Series. The Center featured many prominent Black theologians from across the
U.S. as either visiting professors or lecturers including Howard Thurman, Lucius Tobin, James Cone, Kelly Miller Smith, Herbert
Edwards, Charles Copher, as well as the Black Panther Party co-founder Huey Newton. Despite the Center’s initial support
from the Graduate Theological Union, it became increasingly at odds with administrators over the Center’s funding and support
within the larger Graduate Theological Union community. Rev. Williams continued to teach and serve as the Center’s director
for the next twenty years until his retirement in 1989. His successor, Rev. Dorsey Blake served as director of the Center
for five years until it was eventually shuttered by a lack of institutional support in 1994.
In addition to his work as a professor and civil rights activist, Rev. Williams was also a lifelong patron of music and the
arts. He began performing as a pianist at the age of five, and later studied music at the Detroit Institute of Musical Art
and the Detroit Conservatory of Music. He was the founder and director of Today’s Artists Concerts, a concert promotion company
founded in 1958 that promoted classical musicians and vocalists concerts. He also was the founder of the Four Seasons Arts,
a non-profit arts organization founded in 1994 that organizes classical music concerts in the Bay Area and the Yachats Music
Festival, a classical music festival held each year on the Oregon Coast.
Scope and Content of Collection
The W. Hazaiah Williams papers consists of the administrative files of the Center for Urban-Black Studies and assorted subject
files, photographs, notebooks, and printed material collected by W. Hazaiah Williams. The papers are organized in to seven
series: I. Center for Urban-Black Studies, II. Subject files, III. Graduate Theological Seminary, IV. Organizations, V. Photographs,
VI. Notebooks, VII. Assorted printed material.
The records of the Center for Urban-Black Studies includes historical essays, articles of incorporation, administrative files
such as correspondence and financial records, reports, class files, and programming files documenting the activities of the
Center beginning with its establishment in 1969 through the early 1990s. The records document the Center’s annual programs
such as the Black Odyssey Festival and the Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture Series, the Center’s teaching activities, along
with its conflicts with Graduate Theological Union administrators. The subject files contain mostly brochures, programs, and
other assorted materials on a number of theological and civil rights issues. Included in the subject files are safety instructions
to Bay Area freedom riders traveling through Mississippi and the South in the early 1960s and photographs and correspondence
documenting the civil unrest and activities of Charles Koen in Cairo, Illinois.
The Graduate Theological Union series includes correspondence, memoranda, newsletters, and subject files related to the activities
of the Graduate Theological Union. The files are organized alphabetically by subject and include reports and meeting minutes
of the Committee on Racial-Ethnic Multicultural Affairs, Black Seminarians of the Graduate Theological Seminary, and the Affirmative
Action Commission. The organizations series consists of files kept by Rev. Williams for various organizations he founded or
was active including the East Bay Conference on Race, Religion, and Social Justice, Alamo Black Clergy, and his appointment
to the Berkeley Board of Election. The files include meeting minutes, correspondence, and brochures documenting the organizations
activities and the Board of Education files includes written testimony of students and staff following the ‘Bloody Thursday’
conflict between protesters and the National Guard on May 15, 1969 in People’s Park in Berkeley, California. Also included
are planning files and a speech delivered by Rev. Williams for the third meeting of the National Committee of Negro Churchmen
which convened in Oakland, California in November, 1969.
The photographs in the collection largely document the Center for Urban-Black Studies’ annual Festival of Odyssey and Martin
Luther King Jr. Lecture Series. There several photographs of Huey Newton’s lecture at the Center in 1971 as well as other
prominent ministers lecturing at the event in the early 1970s. The 21 notebooks in the collection consist of legal pad notebooks
kept by Rev. W. Hazaiah Williams documenting various administrative and personal notes. Assorted printed material consists
of essays, brochures, newspapers, newsletters, and flyers mostly related to African American and theological issues in the
San Francisco Bay Area. Materials are arranged by format and by date thereafter.
Series I. Center for Urban-Black Studies
a. History and articles of incorporation
b. Administrative files
c. Reports
d. Programs
e. Teaching
f. Organizations
Series II. Subject files
Series III.Graduate Theological Seminary
Series IV. Organizations
a. Alamo Black Clergy
b. Berkeley Board of Education
c. Black Unity Council
d. East Bay Conference on Religion and Race
e. Ghettos, Inc.
f. National Committee of Negro Churchmen / National Committee of Black Churchmen
g. Operation Breadbasket
Series V. Photographs
Series VI. Notebooks
Series VII. Assorted printed material
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Graduate Theological Union. Center for Urban-Black Studies
Williams, W. Hazaiah, 1930-1999
African American Christian educators
Alamo Black Clergy (East Bay, Calif.)
African American clergy--California--Berkeley
African American educators
African Americans--Civil rights
W. Hazaiah Williams papers, 1952-1998, New York Public Library.
Books and non-rare periodicals transferred to the African American Museum & Library at Oakland library collection.