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Frances Harriet Williams was an African American writer, social worker, sociologist and early civil rights activist affiliated with the Young Women's Cristian Association (YWCA) and the National Association of Colored People (NAACP.) She was part of the first generation of Black women to enter public service as part of the New Deal state under President Franklin Roosevelt, serving as a staff member of the [of Price Administration]. She later joined the staff of U.S. Senator Herbert H Lehman (D-NY,) and served as Assistant to the Executive Secretary of President Harry S. Truman's Committee on Civil Rights.

Early Life

Williams was born in XYZYear in Covington, Kentucky, the youngest of her parents four children. Her mother, Fannie Belle Miller, had been born enslaved in Danville, Kentucky. Her father, Frank Lunsford Williams had also been born enslaved, in Louisville, Kentucky. Williams' parents met as students at Berea College where they were trained as educators. They started a family in Covington, Kentucky, and later settled in St. Louis, Missouri.

Education

Williams attended public schools in St. Louis and, upon high school graduation, enrolled at the University of Cincinnati. It was not a good fit and Williams' mother applied to send Frances to Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The school strongly discouraged Williams from attending, indicating that as an African American student she would not be happy there. Her mother replied directly that she would attend to her daughter's happiness if the school would admit her. In 19XX Williams enrolled and graduated in chemistry and economics in 1919, Phi Beta Kappa.

Williams was awarded a scholarship to the New York School of Social Work, in Manhattan, were she .... In 1931, she earned a master's degree in political science from the University of Chicago, publishing a thesis titled "The Role of the Negroes of Chicago in the Senatorial Election, 1930," under the direction of urban sociologist, Robert E. Park.

YMCA Organizer

National Council of Negro Women Member

NAACP Leader

-- Armenia Conference of 1933.

-- Board of Directors

Office of Price Administration

Truman Presidency

Later years

-- St. Louis Board of Education. Dies in Boston, Massachusetts.

Publications

Frances Harriet Williams, Consideration of the Negro Member in Association where There is No Organized Branch (PLACE: Womans Press, YEAR.)

Frances Harriet Williams, Pudge Grows Up: Series of Meetings for High School Girls (Womans Press, 1936.)

-- [Pudge books.]

Further Reading

Susan T. Gooden, "Frances Harriet Williams: Unsung Social Equity Pioneer," Public Administration Review 77, no. 2 (June 2017.)

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America

External Links

Oral History at Schlesinger Library