Claude Clossey Williams (1895–1979) was a Presbyterian minister active for more than 50 years in civil rights, race relations, and labor advocacy.
[1] He worked with the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, founded the People's Institute for Applied Religion, and served as the national vice president of the American Federation of Teachers.
As a young fundamentalist preacher in the rural South, Williams' initial motivation was the spiritual salvation of his parishioners, or in his words, to “save their never-dying, ever-precious souls from the devil’s hell eternal.”[2] This motivation later evolved into a quest for social justice for the poor throughout society, leading to confrontations with white supremacists and lifelong charges of Communist activities.
His parents, Jess and Minnie Bell Williams, were sharecroppers and members of the fundamentalist Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
However, church and community leaders were opposed to the influx of impoverished workers from surrounding areas, and were shocked by the prospect of mixed race services.
The PIAR received support from Reinhold Niebuhr and Harry Ward, the Methodist Federation for Social Action, the Church League for Industrial Democracy, and the National Religion and Labor Foundation.
As he noted in later years: The message of the PIAR was spread by a network of black and white preachers using visual aid charts and sermon outlines, presenting biblically-based aspects of social justice in simple terms.
In 1942, the Detroit Presbytery asked Williams to become an “industrial chaplain” ministering to the needs of southerners who had come north to work in the auto plants.
In 1946, Williams returned south to Birmingham, Alabama, where he established a Bible training program and continued his work with the PIAR.
[6] A subsequent trial by the Detroit Presbytery did not address the issue of Communism but did find Williams guilty of heresy.