Cecil Williams (Pastor) – Obituary, Wife, Net Worth, Photographer

Cecil Williams was an English-South African theatre director and anti-apartheid activist. He served as a pastor in Hobbs, New Mexico, and in Kansas City, Missouri until 1963, and accepted a position as pastor at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, California. In 1964, Williams, Phyllis Lyon, and Del Martin founded the Council on Religion and the Homosexual. In addition to providing the LGBTQ community a safe place at Glide, Williams protested the de facto segregation of San Francisco public schools, hosted events for the Black Panther Party, supported Angela Davis by hosting “Free Angela Davis” rallies, and demanded investigations of police brutality against African Americans in the Bay Area.

Cecil Williams Biography

Religious leader Reverend Cecil Williams was born on September 22, 1929 in San Angelo, Texas. Williams earned his B.A. degree in sociology from Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas in 1952, and graduated from the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas in 1956, where he was among the first five African Americans to graduate from Perkins School of Theology. Having previously taught English at a high school (including to the lawyer Sir Sydney Kentridge, also an anti-apartheid activist, who described Williams as “a very inspirational master” who “was always talking about politics”), leaving to become an actor, Williams became a communist activist.When the communists were debating how to respond to the government’s demolition of the Sophiatown suburb of Johannesburg, Williams and Jack Hodgson were among those calling for the protesters to use direct force.He was a leading member in the establishment of the Congress of Democrats, and when the government declared a state of emergency following the Sharpeville m*acre he was incarcerated in Pretoria prison.

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At the request of Coretta Scott King, Williams became the chairman of the Northern California Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Observance Committee in 1986. In 2008, Williams was the recipient of the National Caring Award presented by the Caring Institute in Washington, D.C. In August 2013, the intersection where Glide Memorial Church was renamed “Rev. Cecil Williams Way” in his honor. Williams and wife, Janice Mirikitani, appeared as extras in the 2006 film The Pursuit of Happyness and he was also featured in the PBS documentary series This Far by Faith. Williams authored two books; I’m Alive: An Autobiography published in 1980, and collaborated with his wife to publish Beyond the Possible in 2013.