John Albert Williams

He was born to an escaped slave and spoke from the pulpit and the newspapers on issues of civil rights, equality, and racial harmony.

[2] Henry was a Virginia slave who escaped along the Underground Railroad to London, and Adaline was of French-Canadian and black heritage.

[4] On Worthington's recommendation, he attended Seabury Divinity School in Faribault, Minnesota, graduating on June 3, 1891.

Bishop Shayler of Omaha said service at Trinity Cathedral, and he was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery.

[1] He was ordained together with Irving P. Johnson and Paul Matthews, who became bishops of Colorado and New Jersey respectively.

At that time, St. Barnabas was led by a white priest of the same name, Reverend John Williams.

In that role, Williams frequently sought to calm Omaha's black community in the face of racial tensions, such as during the Spring Valley, Illinois black-Italian labor war in August 1895.

[21] In August 1906, black members of the Omaha community formed a group called the "Progressive League of Douglas County", Williams president, to pressure the county Republicans to include blacks on the legislative ticket, in particular Millard F.

[22] His connections with black and civil rights elites brought many speakers to Omaha, including the aforementioned Wells, Joel Elias Spingarn[23] and Robert W.

He spoke out against Jim Crow cars,[26] voted in opposition to prohibition in an episcopal church meeting,[27] he called for calm after the lynching of Willy Brown in 1919,[28] rallied Omaha support of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill,[29] and opposed segregated pools.

He also worked in the black press, particularly for Omaha's The Enterprise edited by George F. Franklin and later by Thomas P.

[3] The Monitor was an important organ of black thought of the time, occasionally taking outspoken positions.