Junius Williams Quotes

“The enemy was not the Klan but the inside-outside lock that racism and classism had on the minds of the people: It operated from the inside through self-hate and self-doubt, and from the outside through the police, carnivorous landlords, and the welfare system.”

— Junius Williams

“There are turning points in everyone's life when we have to fight, even if we have to do it by ourselves and in public.”

— Junius Williams

“Too few of us from the Black Power generation and the movements to take power in cities through the election of black elected officials have told our story. Hence there is very little understanding of the agenda for change we outlined for black people and America in the 1960s and early 1970s. We wanted self-determination, and end to racism, and economic security. It is an agenda that was never fulfilled, and hence the title of my book, Unfinished Agenda.”

— Junius Williams

“I had no way of predicting that Selma to Montgomery was indeed to be the last great civil rights march of the era, and that everything afterward would indeed by 'post-civil rights.”

— Junius Williams

“But despite the scarcity of confrontation with whites in our neighborhood, race and racism permeated every aspect of our lives. Our parents taught us that in order to succeed, we 'had to be twice as good as white folks.' We were constantly being prepared to enter a world dominated by whites.”

— Junius Williams

“Black power showed up in different ways, depending on the goals of the group.”

— Junius Williams

“The SNCC base of operation, at the corner of Jackson and High Streets, was in the heart of the black community in Montgomery. I don't remember too much else about the city, but I'll always remember that corner. There were hundreds of young people behind police barricades of some sort. Lots of college students, some white, from up North, and some local black folks and college students. The whole Selma-to-Montgomery push, and this ancillary thrust by SNCC in Montgomery, was because on the other side of that barricade there were white folks who had shown they would stop at nothing, including violence, to protect white supremacy.”

— Junius Williams

“There was an aura about King that was unforgettable. I seem him now in my mind's eye: collected, peaceful, calm. He was in his element and totally in command of himself and the situation.”

— Junius Williams

“We were still confined to that corner. More and more people joined us, some black and some white. On the second day, we awoke to learn that somebody must have told Martin Luther King that things were getting out of hand in Montgomery, because rumor had it that he left the line of march from Selma to join us in the hood. Despite myself, I was thrilled at the prospect of marching with King. I knew this was SNCC turf, and I was now with SNCC, but how can you not be thrilled with the prospect of being so close to the big man himself?”

— Junius Williams

“Knocking on doors wasn't working. We had to try something else. Remember the kids whose natural curiosity brought them into our little office on the corner? We set up a Freedom School that was fashioned after the SNCC Freedom Schools in Mississippi and other places.”

— Junius Williams

Life was not always so peaceful and rewarding at NAPA (the office). Sometime during 1968, I cam back to the office and found the plate glass window shattered. I asked Ab what happened, and he strangely knew nothing.

— Junius Williams

“In any organization of which I have played a leadership role, our trump card has never been great numbers but the way we worked with neighborhood people in conjunction with professionals in suits and ties. I want the Obama generation to try to understand this concept, and use it as a real yardstick for their ability to make change. My life personifies the straddling of two cultures: the world of Amherst and Yale and the world of Newark, New Jersey. As you will see, it is the power of the streets combined with the power of the suites that is the most effective mix for making things happen. Anybody who comes to you and says "we want change," without addressing the intersection of these two powerful forces in combination, is just whistling status quo.”

— Junius Williams

“We learned how to envision a different neighborhood, fought for the resources to make it happen, and in March 1968, through the Medical School Agreements, had been given the green light to proceed. All we had to do was make it happen
and ascend to a new level of power in the community.”

— Junius Williams

“Organizing a working majority proved harder than we thought because we couldn't get a quorum. But one day in December, twelve people showed up, eight from our coalition. So we changed the quorum to eight. You gotta do what you gotta do
this was war, one faction against many others who wanted control of the land.”

— Junius Williams

“I had never run a campaign, but I was an organizer. My job was to create momentum by mobilizing the constituency we had, which I was positioned to do.”

— Junius Williams

“So on June 16, 1970, history was made in Newark. Ken Gibson became the first black mayor of a major Northeastern city.”

— Junius Williams

“The youth were to be trained to be the vanguard of the next battlefront, whatever that was. I knew within my heart that the Gibson experiment in city hall would attract enemies, so I intended to teach these young people how to fight on this new battlefield.”

— Junius Williams

“By the middle to the end of the 1970s, Black Power as we envisioned was a dream deferred. And I was no longer in a position to awaken the minds of the people about what was happening.”

— Junius Williams

“Later that year, the Voting Rights Act opened the door for thousands to register for the first time.”

— Junius Williams