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<h1 class="entry-title">Civil rights activist Mabel Williams laid to
rest in Monroe</h1>
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<div class="storybyline">By Adam Bell<br>
<a href="mailto:abell@charlotteobserver.com">abell@charlotteobserver.com</a></div>
<div class="byline"><span class="published" title="2014-04-28T22:34:00Z">Posted:
Tuesday, Apr. 29, 2014<br>
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<p> MONROE </p>
<p> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>In the mid-20th century, the Monroe area had a Ku Klux Klan presence
and remained heavily segregated, from lunch counters to swimming pools.
</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p><span class="subhead">Life in exile</span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The charges landed him on the FBI’s most wanted list, and the family
made their way to Cuba, and later Asia. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>During a 2004 event sponsored by Freedom Archives, which puts
recordings of the social justice movement online, Williams <a
href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/Mabel.html" target="_blank">was
asked </a>if she minded being in her husband’s shadow.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p><span class="subhead">Fighting for their rights</span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>He said it was important that the community protects the Williamses’
legacy. </p>
</div>
<h6>Bell: 704-358-5696; <a href="https://twitter.com/abell"
target="_blank">Twitter: @abell</a></h6>
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<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
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