[News] Civil rights activist Mabel Williams laid to rest in Monroe

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Civil rights activist Mabel Williams laid to rest in Monroe


By Adam Bell
abell at charlotteobserver.com <mailto:abell at charlotteobserver.com>
Posted: Tuesday, Apr. 29, 2014

*http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/04/28/4872303/civil-rights-activist-mabel-williams.html#.U1-_vVca3YM

Use link for photos and video
*

MONROE

Her controversial husband made most of the headlines, but Monroe native 
Mabel Robinson Williams was recalled Monday as a force for 
African-Americans since the early days of the civil rights movement.

Williams, the widow of Robert Franklin Williams, died April 19 in 
Detroit after battling breast cancer. She was buried Monday alongside 
her husband at Hillcrest Cemetery in Monroe, down the street from their 
old home. She was 82.

In the mid-20th century, the Monroe area had a Ku Klux Klan presence and 
remained heavily segregated, from lunch counters to swimming pools.

Robert Williams, who ran the local chapter of the National Association 
for the Advancement of Colored People, received national attention in 
1959 for urging the black community to meet "violence with violence" to 
defend themselves as a last resort. He later detailed his story in a 
book called "Negroes with Guns" and remained a divisive figure in the 
civil rights movement, as prominent leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. 
preached nonviolence.

The couple's son, Detroit pastor John Williams, told the Observer before 
the service that his mother supported his father every step of the way. 
"It's impossible to accurately tell Robert Williams' story without Mabel 
Williams. She was right there."

She never hesitated to arm herself to protect her family, her son said. 
And he never heard her say anything bad about her husband of nearly half 
a century.

At the graveside service attended by more than 60 people, Mabel Williams 
was recalled as a generous woman who cared deeply about her family and 
her race.

Her cousin, the Rev. Haywood Redfern, officiated and said God had called 
the Williamses to do great things. "One thing I want you to know, Robert 
and Mabel have always been our heroes."

Elaine E. Steele was a longtime friend of Mabel Williams and civil 
rights leader Rosa Parks. Steele said Mabel Williams was a lot like 
Parks. "She was the embodiment of pride, dignity and courage," she said. 
"She was a warrior for freedom in her own right."

Life in exile

In 1961, the Williams family fled Monroe and later the country after 
Robert Williams was accused of kidnapping a white couple in the midst of 
a race-related riot. He maintained he was trying to protect them from a 
crowd he couldn't control.

The charges landed him on the FBI's most wanted list, and the family 
made their way to Cuba, and later Asia.

Robert Williams hosted "Radio Free Dixie" over shortwave radio from 
Havana, offering commentary on the civil rights movement. During their 
exile, the couple met the likes of Fidel Castro, North Vietnam leader Ho 
Chi Minh and Mao Zedong.

They returned to the United States in 1969 and settled in Michigan. The 
kidnapping charges ultimately were dismissed, and Robert Williams died 
in 1996. Parks spoke admiringly of him at his funeral.

During a 2004 event sponsored by Freedom Archives, which puts recordings 
of the social justice movement online, Williams was asked 
<http://www.freedomarchives.org/Mabel.html>if she minded being in her 
husband's shadow.

"We are fighting together for the rights of our people," she said. "I 
don't care if my name ever gets out there. If we make moves forward for 
our children, then that's what we're all about. That's what the struggle 
is about."

Fighting for their rights

About an hour before Monday's service, Monroe resident Michael Eddie 
stopped by the cemetery. He knew the couple in the 1950s when he was a boy.

"This is another step of history," Eddie said. "In the black community, 
we don't have the fighters we had back then. ... There's no one like 
Robert and Miss Mabel."

During the service, Jonathan Blount, who lived near the Williams family 
in Monroe, recalled when the police chased Robert Williams into his 
yard. "Mabel came out with a shotgun and said, 'I will blow your head 
off.' What black woman does that?" asked Blount, one of the founders of 
Essence magazine.

He said it was important that the community protects the Williamses' 
legacy.


            Bell: 704-358-5696; Twitter: @abell <https://twitter.com/abell>


Read more here: 
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/04/28/4872303/civil-rights-activist-mabel-williams.html#storylink=cpy 

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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