Dr. Yohuru Williams was immersed in culture growing up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Music, art, books – he eagerly devoured them all. At six years old, he once accompanied his mother to an English literature night class she was taking at the nearby community college. While he was told to stay quiet, he couldn’t resist the urge to respond when the professor asked the class a question. The room had a friendly chuckle for the inquisitive young boy, but his mother wasn’t amused and sent him into the hallway for the rest of the evening.
students with research projects, service-learning experience, and the Racial Justice Scholarship. It’s a role he enjoys but wasn’t expecting to take on at this scale. It was after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer that Williams realized just how little many people knew about African American history. “What frustrated me the most in the aftermath of the horrific murder of George Floyd wasn’t the people who were asking earnest questions about what they could do, it was the number of people who didn’t understand how we got to this place
breaking do The Racial Justice Initiative uses history to educate on systemic racism.
“That drove me crazy,” Williams said with a grin. “I was enjoying being in that space and hearing what everybody was talking about.” Williams has never stopped asking questions and searching for answers through connecting and collaborating with others, something he does a lot of in his role as founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative (RJI) at St. Thomas. RJI focuses on supporting racial justice education through research, partnerships, dialogue and conversation. From high-level executives at major corporations to community-based nonprofits and university students, Williams educates others about historical recovery and issues of racial justice. The RJI, under the leadership of Williams, engages the public through speakers series; counsels faculty and staff on ways to grow their work; and supports
in the first place,” said Williams, who also holds the titles of Distinguished University Chair and professor of history. “This isn’t accidental; we didn’t just get here,” said the noted scholar of the civil rights and Black Power movements who earned a doctorate in American history from Howard University. “There's a long history to explain disparities … what I like to call the six degrees of segregation. It has always been my life’s work to expose that, but what RJI has allowed me the platform and opportunity to do is to go out and do that work with corporations, with community organizations, with educators. RJI is all about altering the way that people are looking at reality so they can change the way they think about that history and how they can take action.”
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