William E. Matthews (July 1845 - May 2, 1894) was a lawyer, financier, and civil rights activist in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington DC.

Matthews' role including travelling throughout the state to help organize schools and discuss the transition of the people from slavery to citizenship.

After the war in 1867, he became an agent for a group organized by Bishop Daniel A. Payne to found schools and build churches among the freedmen throughout the southern United States.

In 1881, he resigned from the postal service and opened a real estate and broker's office in the Le Droit Building in Washington D.C.

[3] Matthews and Douglass were elected representatives of a New York convention in 1892 and met with President Benjamin Harrison to discuss lynchings and violence against blacks throughout the south.