Auburn Avenue exhibit honoring activist Williams opens Sunday

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. referred to him as “My wild man, my Castro,” because when things needed shaking up, the Rev. Hosea L. Williams was the perfect change agent.

Williams’ flamboyant and significant career as a civil rights activist is on view in a new exhibit at the Auburn Avenue Research Library beginning Sunday.

“Unbought and Unbossed” marks the opening of the library’s Hosea Williams archive and the eighth anniversary of his death.

During this splashy weekend for exhibits opening in Atlanta, lines will be waiting to see blockbusters about King Tut and China’s first emperor.

The unpretentious event at the downtown library, which will include addresses by two of Williams’ daughters, Barbara Williams Emerson and Elizabeth Williams Omilami, is in accord with their father’s homespun touch. He favored bib overalls and red sneakers and made campaigning for the poor his life’s work.

The contemporary legacy of that work is his Hosea Feed the Hungry organization, run by his family, that provides meals for the poor on Thanksgiving, Christmas, King Day and Easter.

The exhibit draws from the 100,000 documents and hundreds of photographs that Williams had stored away in boxes in his basement on Hosea Williams Drive and at a nearby warehouse he owned.

In 2004, his family sold the collection to the research library, which has spent the last four years cataloging, organizing and preserving the letters, fliers, sermons, photographs and manuscripts, according to archive manager Kerrie Cotten Williams.

Man of many faces

Williams was raised by his maternal grandparents in tiny Attapulgus, near the Florida line in South Georgia.

Included in the exhibit is a photo of that couple, Lelar and Turner Williams. Nearby is the famous photo of the marchers coming over the highly arched Edmund Pettus bridge outside Selma, Ala. Williams and future Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) are side-by-side at the head of the column.

The section called “Context” includes photographs of a bloodied female protester being arrested and a somber Williams walking with the mule-drawn farm wagon bearing King’s casket.

A reprint of one of the Williams’ sermons on the “death of the civil rights movement” is included in enlarged type —- though Williams typically did most of his writing with a red Sharpie felt-tip on a yellow legal pad.

Many faces of Williams emerge through the exhibit, which takes its name from Williams’ motto. Displayed is the Puckish protester, tearing a George Wallace bumper sticker in half; a thundering prophet, addressing occupants of a soggy tent city on the Mall during the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign march on Washington; and the politician, in his distinctive eyeglasses with huge frames resembling window panes.

Packrat with a purpose

Also in the exhibit is a letter he wrote to the parole board asking to be given a furlough to attend the inauguration of Ronald Reagan.

Always a man full of surprises, Williams supported the conservative Reagan because the candidate had promised to make King’s birthday a national holiday.

Williams was in jail at the time for behavior that plagued his later years and marred his legacy: He was arrested dozens of times for traffic violations, many of them alcohol-related.

All through his life he saved his own story, in documents and recordings of his television show, said his daughter, Barbara Williams Emerson, partly because he was a packrat and partly because he knew it was important.

As a result, students of the era will have a treasure trove of information to draw on.

“In his characteristically uncharacteristic way, he was amassing a set of papers and documents that are going to be very valuable as scholarly material,” said the Conyers resident.

IF YOU GO

“Unbossed and Unbought: The Opening of The Hosea L. Williams Papers”

Opening ceremonies. 2-5 p.m. Sunday. Exhibit hours (through Feb. 15): 10 a.m.- 8 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; noon-6 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 2-6 p.m. Sundays. Closed Nov. 27-28, Dec. 24-25 and Jan. 1. Auburn Avenue Research Library, 101 Auburn Ave. N.E. 404-730-4001, ext. 210; www.afpls.org