This image appeared in the Washington Post news obituary, Feb 27, 2008 B7
The Washington Post: "Aubrey W. Williams Jr. Anthropology Professor"
The Diamondback: "Anthropology professor Aubrey Williams dead at 83"
Source obituary
by Nancy Otter
Aubrey Willis Williams, Jr., Professor of Anthropology at the University of Maryland since 1962, died Saturday morning, February 23, 2008, of complications related to pneumonia.
Williams was born in 1924 in Madison, Wisconsin to Anita Schreck Williams and Aubrey Williams, who was a main consultant for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. He grew up in Washington, D.C. and Alexandria, Virginia. He volunteered to join the Army Air Corps in 1942 and served as flight engineer and top gunner in a B-17 over Western Europe through the end of WWII. On returning to the U.S., Williams completed his BA and MA in Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also became active in a variety of social and political movements including Henry Wallace’s 1948 campaign for the presidency.
In his father’s home state of Alabama, Williams was one of a handful of white supporters of civil rights and desegregation, as well as economic justice for sharecroppers and textile workers. In particular, he worked to integrate public schools in the Montgomery, Alabama area, and was circulation manager for his father’s newspaper, The Southern Farmer.
In 1956 and 1957 Williams was a field camp director for the American Friends Service Committee in the state of Puebla, Mexico. He returned to the US to complete a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Arizona in 1962. He was hired for two years by the Navajo Tribe and conducted interviews with 300 elderly tribe members. The recordings are in the Navajo Tribal Archives in Window Rock, Arizona.
Williams believed that anthropology should not simply act as a mirror to reflect human cultures, but rather as a tool to encourage awareness, tolerance, and social progress. In 1962 he was hired by the Sociology Department at the University of Maryland and five years later created the Program in Anthropology within the Department of Sociology. He served as Director of the Anthropology Program and helped create the Department of Anthropology in 1971, where he served as the department’s first director. He taught at the University of Maryland until his death, preferring to teach introductory courses to pass on his enthusiasm for cultural diversity to the largest number of students. He also acted as a model of social activism through his involvement in both antiwar and student rights movements, while continuing to support fair housing and civil liberties.
In addition to his work at the University of Maryland, Williams served as a research associate for the Smithsonian in 1972 and 1973 working in the Tehuacan Valley studying contemporary village life for a comparative analysis with archaeobotanical remains. As a Fulbright Scholar he traveled to the USSR in 1980 to teach anthropology at Kemerovo University in Siberia, and the following year he taught at Leningrad University. In 1990-91 he received a grant from USIA, which allowed him to go to Finland to teach anthropology at various universities. He most recently worked with the Mapuche Indians of central Chile as they prepared for a major highway that would bisect their community. His research on Navajo political life, Zapotec and Mixtec dietary and exchange practices, and canal systems of central Mexico was published in a variety of journals and collections.
Williams is survived by two brothers: Morrison, of York, Pennsylvania, and Jere, of Framingham, Massachusetts, as well as a son, Jonathan, of Prairie Farm, Wisconsin, a daughter, Nancy Otter, of New Britain, Connecticut, and a son, Aubrey Philip, of Santa Barbara, California, as well as many nieces and nephews. He would have welcomed his sixth grandchild in August, 2008.
A memorial will be held Sunday, April 13th, 2008 at the University of Maryland. For details on the event, information on donations, and more information on Williams' life please go to http://aubreywwilliams.googlepages.com/home