American pastor emeritus of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco, California; a community leader and author. Both Williams and the church are featured in the 2006 film The Pursuit of Happyness.
He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Huston–Tillotson University in 1952. He was one of the first five African American graduates of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in 1955. He became the pastor of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, California in 1963, and founded the Council on Religion and the Homosexual the following year. He welcomed everyone to participate in services and hosted political rallies in which Angela Davis and the Black Panthers spoke and lectures by personalities as diverse as Bill Cosby and Billy Graham. When Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, Williams attempted to negotiate a deal for her release.
Drawing on his experiences in the civil rights movement, Williams was one of the first African-Americans to become involved in the gay rights movement. In 1964, he gave a speech at the Society for Individual Rights in San Francisco, which was more outspoken than the contemporary Mattachine Society. Based on the contemporary campaign for African-American voting rights, he suggested that gays should use their votes to gain political power and effect change.
Williams was married to school teacher Evelyn Robinson (1928–1981) from 1956 until their divorce in 1976. They had two children, a son, Albert and a daughter, Kim. He was married to Janice Mirikitani, a poet, from 1982 until her death in 2021. He is the author of I’m Alive: An Autobiography, published in 1980, and he collaborated with Mirikitani on the book Beyond the Possible, published in 2013.
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