Out to Lunch: Activist T Williams shares lessons from an ‘oversized’ table

We have all been witnesses to moments in history. But there are people in every community who go a step further by working to shape what happens next. Minnesota Now’s series, Out to Lunch, is a chance to get to know some of those influential neighbors.

MPR News host Nina Moini recently met up with longtime activist T Williams at Soul Bowl, a restaurant inside the V3 Sports health and wellness center in north Minneapolis. He has lived in the neighborhood since moving to Minnesota in 1965.

That year, he became director of the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center. After riots broke out on Plymouth Avenue in 1967, he helped set up the Minneapolis Urban Coalition, a group of corporate leaders, local politicians and community members created to work on poverty and racial inequality in the city.

Now, Williams is sharing a record of his long career advocating for people of color in Minnesota. He wrote a book with co-author David Lawrence Grant. It’s called “Rewind: Lessons from Fifty Years of Activism.”

The following has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

When you first came to Minneapolis, what was this neighborhood like?

On this end of Plymouth Avenue, there was housing. The further you went west, there were stores, small businesses. In the ‘60s, as the demographics in the neighborhood began to change, the merchants who were dependent upon a different demographic began to either close or relocate. And the new demographic did not have necessarily the resources and assets to establish similar businesses, so the place just went blank.

In 1966 they had the first disturbance on Plymouth Avenue. About a half a dozen places had the windows broken and maybe one fire or so. In 1967 they had the bigger disturbance on Plymouth Avenue, and this time it lasted longer. It was about a day, day and a half, and the destruction was greater.

Multiple shops were destroyed and several of them were set fire. Those kinds of things were happening all across the country in 1967. Lyndon Johnson, the president, had a convocation in Washington. There were about 40 or 50 people from here that went, and when they got there, Lyndon Johnson said, “Now you go back home and you start these urban coalitions.”

How did you get involved in the Urban Coalition?

A group of 14 corporate executives in Minneapolis thought they would like to do something. They didn’t know what. So they went to whom they knew: other white men. They contacted a fellow whom I knew, a fellow named Larry Harris.

He consulted with them and the mayor, and he told them, “Look, now what's it going to look like? A group of rich white men engage another white man to go out and study what should be happening in the minority community. You would have zero credibility.”

He told them he would do it if he could get someone credible to work with him on it and he identified me as that person. We did all of the planning and the architecture parts of the Urban Coalition. It’s been gone for a long time, but I identified it in my book as one of the most consequential institutions of its time.

Current day, we’re seeing corporations roll back DEI measures. What are your reflections on relationships between stakeholders — like corporations — and community members?

What is being done now I see as counterproductive and the absence of any understanding of history. Part of the reason why I wrote this book is because I wanted to share the history of how this community responded to its crises from 1965 up through the ‘70s. The response was appropriate to the times and it was engaging.

[The Urban Coalition] was a big, huge, oversized table. Around it sat every interest. When we suggested that, those executives went out of their mind. You know, “how do you control that?” And we said, “you don’t.”

You let it come out, and then you pick from the pieces that you can work with and do something constructive. And you do that as quickly as you can and you engage the people who are going to be impacted most about what it is you're trying to do.

How can people engage with the past more thoughtfully, more intentionally?

One of the prohibitors is our inability to get through to people. And I know some of this changed out of necessity. When we first came here, it was a simple thing. That’s what I liked so much about Minnesota and Minneapolis.

If I wanted to get through to the mayor from where I was as director of Phyllis Wheatley, I could pick up a phone and call him directly. Because of my position in the community, I didn't have to give my history about how important I am and that I'm worthy of his taking my call. It didn't get filtered through 25 people.

Having written this book and the story about the Urban Coalition, there are several corporations that were instrumental in this and the leadership played a key role. And I think it'd be important to them to know that today.

But I have not been able to get past the AIs, to talk to somebody where I could tell them personally. You lose that ability to have people tell their stories to the ones who can make a difference, can do something with it.

The Last Bite: For people who are feeling tired or wanting to disengage, what are the ingredients to maintaining your mission?

Networking. It's impossible to really know too many people. Get to know as many people as you can and learn as much about them and be willing to share with them things about you that connects you.

Patience. We lack patience. We want things to happen day before yesterday that really take until day after tomorrow to be effective. Some of us have been in an environment over a few years where they've never experienced good outcomes from patience. So if you've never experienced it, then find someone who has.

But importantly, being willing to get to know people who don't look like you, don't talk like you, don't act like you and being patient enough to hear their stories.