Hosea Williams

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Hosea L. Williams
Born January 5, 1926(1926-01-05)
Attapulgus, Georgia
Died November 16, 2000 (aged 74)
Atlanta, Georgia

Hosea Lorenzo Williams (January 5, 1926 – November 16, 2000) was a United States civil rights leader, ordained minister, and later a politician. His famous motto was "Unbought and Unbossed" (which was also the motto of congresswoman Shirley Chisholm).

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[edit] Background

Williams was born in Attapulgus, Georgia. Both of his parents were teenagers committed to a trade institute for the blind in Macon. His mother ran away from the institute upon learning of her pregnancy. Williams never knew his father. His mother died while giving birth to her second child. He was raised by his mother's parents, Lela and Turner Williams. He left home by age 14.

Williams served with the U.S. Army during World War II in an all-African-American unit under General Patton. He advanced to the rank of Staff Sergeant. Williams was the only survivor of a Nazi bombing, which left him in a hospital in Europe for more than a year and earned him a Purple Heart.

After the war, he earned a high school diploma at age 23, then a bachelor's degree and a master's degree (both in chemistry) from Atlanta's Morris Brown College and Atlanta University (present day Clark Atlanta University). Williams was a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity.

In the early 1950s Williams married Juanita Terry and worked for the United States Department of Agriculture. They have a son, Hosea L. Williams, II and a daughter, Elizabeth Omilami. Williams was preceded in death by his wife and son.

[edit] Civil Rights

He ended up in a hospital for over a month after being seriously beaten for using a drinking fountain marked "whites only". He was arrested for other protests more than 125 times.

He first joined the NAACP, but later became a leader in the SCLC along with Martin Luther King, Jr., Joseph Lowery, and Andrew Young among many others. He also led the first 1965 march on Selma, Alabama, and was beaten unconscious, leaving him with a fractured skull and a severe concussion.

In 1974, he organized the International Wrestling League (IWL), base in Atlanta, Georgia, with Thunderbolt Patterson serving as president. The promotion ran three cards before folding.

In politics, he served on the Atlanta City Council and in the Georgia General Assembly. He surprised many black civil rights figures in 1980 by joining Ralph Abernathy and Charles Evers and endorsing Ronald Reagan. By 1984, however, he had soured on Reagan's policies, and returned to the Democrats.

In 1987 he led another nationally-covered march, this one consisting of 75 people in Forsyth County, Georgia, which at the time (before becoming a major exurb of northern metro Atlanta) had no non-white residents. He and the others were assaulted with stones and other objects by the KKK and other white supremacists. Another march the following week brought 20,000 people and an enormous showing of police and sheriff department officers, plus national media. Forsyth County, which at one time had a sign at the county line warning people who were not white not to be in the county after sundown, rapidly integrated following Hosea's demonstration, due, in part, to the availability of reasonably priced housing, a rarity in metro Atlanta. Forsyth is no longer considered merely an exurb of Atlanta but is a rapidly growing suburb.

In 1989, he unsuccessfully ran against Maynard Jackson for mayor of Atlanta.

[edit] Later life

Hosea Feed The Hungry and Homeless, Inc.

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 4672
Atlanta GA 30302-4672
Physical Address: 1035 Donnelly Avenue SW
Atlanta, GA 30310
Phone (404) 755-3353 Fax: (404) 755-3868

He founded Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless, a non-profit foundation widely known in Atlanta for providing hot meals, haircuts, clothing, and other free services for the needy on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Easter Sunday each year. Williams' daughter Elizabeth Omilami serves as head of the foundation.

He also became somewhat infamous in his later years for his erratic driving, he was charged with DUI over a dozen times and never found guilty.[citation needed]

Both his wife and his son, Hosea Williams II, died prior to his own death.

Williams died at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, after a three-year battle with cancer. Services were held at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where close friend Dr. Martin Luther King was once the pastor. He was buried at Lincoln Cemetery.

Hosea frequented "CHOPS," a fine dining restaurant where he was known for regular dining and drinking. The restaurant even had a special drink key for Hosea that properly charged him for an unusual beverage that was his own favorite concoction.

[edit] Hosea L Williams Drive

Boulevard Drive in the southeastern area of Atlanta was renamed as Hosea L Williams Drive shortly before Williams died. Hosea Williams Drive runs by the site of his former home in the East Lake neighborhood at the intersection of Hosea Williams Drive and East Lake Drive.

Hosea Williams Drive is in the DeKalb County portion of Atlanta and originates at Moreland Avenue, running east-west through the communities of Edgewood, Kirkwood, and East Lake. The street ends at Candler Road.

[edit] External links