Page 54 - DeKalb Bicentennial Flipbook

LUMINARIES

OF DEKALB COUNTY

These are the women and men who dedicated their lives to service for the
betterment of the society they are living and lived in.

hether their influence inspired others regionally or around the world, they are luminaries of DeKalb
County. Streets and notable buildings carry their names in honor of their rays of light in making
W DeKalb — and abroad — an example of the struggle to build up the best quality of life.

HOSEA WILLIAMS (1926-2000)
Hosea Williams led the first of Georgia’s biggest civil
rights marches in 1987, leading 20,000 people through
all-white Forsyth County as they endured racial slurs and
physical beatings. The second was a march to Georgia’s
state capital in 1996 to challenge the government to
remove the Confederate symbol in the state flag. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. (1929-1968)
Williams was a veteran who served in an all-black Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta in 1929 as the
infantry regiment under General George Patton in son of Martin Luther King, Sr., who succeeded his father,
World War II. Rev. A.D. Williams as pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church
When Williams tried to drink from a ‘White Only’ water and a founder of Atlanta’s NAACP chapter. With this culture
fountain in Savannah in 1952 he was nearly killed for doing of influence in his upbringing, it is no wonder King would
so. His civil rights career began soon after when he joined become the leading voice of the Civil Rights Movement.
the Savannah, Georgia branch of the National Association Dr. King and other southern black ministers founded the
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and later Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, becoming Atlanta in 1957.

by 1962 one Dr. Martin Luther King’s trusted advisers. After King is an alum of Morehouse College, Crozer Theological
King’s assassination, Williams led the SCLC. Seminary, and Boston University – where he committed to
Williams is an alum of Morris Brown College in Atlanta exercising Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent strategy for social
and Atlanta University. He served as a Commissioner in change. He was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964
DeKalb County from 1990 to 1994. for his life’s work four years prior to his assassination.

52 Sp i rit o f D eK alb – B i centen n ial 1822-2022