John Alfred Williams (1925–2015)

John Alfred Williams was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and raised in Syracuse, New York. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1943, serving as a pharmacist’s mate in the South Pacific, and attended Syracuse University on the G.I. Bill, graduating with a degree in English and journalism in 1950. Married with two sons, he worked at various jobs to make ends meet. Between separation and divorce, Williams moved to Los Angeles, where he worked briefly in insurance and television publicity before returning to the East Coast. He then worked for a vanity press in Manhattan, where he met Lorrain Isaac, who became his second wife and mother of his third son. After working in radio, for the American Committee on Africa, and on journalism assignments abroad, he published his first novel, The Angry Ones (1960), a.k.a. One for New York.

Williams had one of the most prolific careers in twentieth-century American letters. He is perhaps best known for The Man Who Cried I Am (1967), a novel about a dying African American writer in Europe who learns of the “King Alfred Plan,” a government plot to eliminate Black unrest in America. Other novels include Night Song (1961), Sissie (1963), Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light (1969), Captain Blackman (1972), Mothersill and the Foxes (1975), The Junior Bachelor Society (1976), !Click Song (1982), The Berhama Account (1985), and Jacob’s Ladder (1987). His last published novel, Clifford’s Blues (1999)—the diary of a Black, gay, jazz pianist in Dachau—may be his finest achievement. Williams also published numerous short stories, a play, a volume of poetry, and wrote the libretto to the opera Vanqui.

Williams’s career is distinguished further by his work in nonfiction, such as The King God Didn’t Save (1970), a controversial analysis of the government agencies and media apparatus surrounding Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Other notables include The Most Native of Sons: A Biography of Richard Wright (1970) for young adult readers, and If I Stop, I’ll Die: The Comedy and Tragedy of Richard Pryor (1991), co-written with his son Dennis. Williams also authored the children’s book Africa, Her History, Lands, and People (1963) and the American travelogue This Is My Country Too (1965). He co-edited Amistad 1 and 2, volumes of contemporary writing, and Dear Chester, Dear John (2008), a collection of letters between himself and author Chester Himes. Williams also published extensively as a journalist, appearing in the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Holiday, Newsweek, Ebony, Jet, and more.

These accomplishments were recognized by numerous awards, including Syracuse University’s Centennial Medal for Outstanding Achievement (1970), the Richard Wright—Jacques Roumain Award (1973), a National Endowment for the Arts grant (1977), a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Award (1985), and the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award in 1983 and 1998. Williams also received honorary degrees from numerous universities, including the University of Rochester in 2003.

Williams taught at a variety of institutions, including LaGuardia Community College, Boston University, and NYU. In 1994, he retired from Rutgers University, Newark, where he had been a professor of English, journalism, and creative writing since 1979. At Rutgers, he earned the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1982 and was named Paul Robeson Distinguished Professor of English in 1990. In the early 2000s, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, which led to hospitalization at a Veterans Administration facility in Paramus, New Jersey, where he died in 2015.

Williams’s works “dispel(led) common myths and misunderstandings about black Americans.”¹  He asserted not only Black cultural specificity and the radical demands of Black Power, but also that African American literature transcended racial difference. He criticized “the ghetto-ization of Black writers,” insisting that they be reviewed and taught alongside non-Black writers. Acknowledging the multiplicity of Black experiences, Williams said, “We must accept difference–celebrate it. We’re not a monolith–one thing.”²  James DeJongh called Williams “arguably the finest Afro-American novelist of his generation.”³  Exceptional productivity, undeniable storytelling skills, and compelling affirmations of the humanity and diversity of Black people made John A. Williams a figure to be emulated by African American writers of subsequent generations as well.

1. James DeJongh, “John A. Williams” Dictionary of Literary Biography, 33 (1984) 268
2. Qtd. In Fleming
3. DeJongh 280

– Biography by Jeffrey Allen Tucker, February 2021

Jeffrey Allen Tucker is an associate professor in the Department of English at the University of Rochester. He is author of A Sense of Wonder: Samuel R. Delany, Race, Identity, & Difference (Wesleyan, 2004), editor of Conversations with John A. Williams (Mississippi, 2018), and co-editor of Race Consciousness: African American Studies for the New Century (NYU, 1997), as well as the author of articles on writers such as Octavia E. Butler, George S. Schuyler, and Colson Whitehead.

Photograph Courtesy of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester.