Dr. Edwin S. Williams passed away last week at the age of 81. In addition to being the first Black member of the Virginia Glee Club, where he was denied service by a truck stop manager while on tour in an event leading to the desegregation of similar businesses between Charlottesville and Washington on Route 29, he was only the second Black student to graduate from the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia.
Williams’s career in medicine, following his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia, lasted fifty years. He was a patron of the arts, supporting the Washington National Opera. And he was a reader of my book, in which I was fortunate enough to be able to tell part of his story. His niece was kind enough to let me know he had enjoyed the book; in the ultimate “small world,” she and I not both only attended UVa but also went to the same high school, where we both played in the high school orchestra.
In 2025, we are a nation that is increasingly inimical to the rights of Black people and seeking to actively dismantle measures taken to redress the many years spent denying them access to higher education. When I was growing up, it seemed unthinkable that—just a few years before my birth—my state was shutting down the public school system to resist integration. Dr. Williams entered UVa three years later. It must have seemed like unbelievable progress at the time. We must stay vigilant against attempts to regress our society to those days; as measured by the life and contributions of those like Dr. Williams, the cost of such a regression would be immeasurably high.
He was my Doctor for over 20 years at the Gerald Family Care practice and was almost fatherly in our visits. Such an intelligent , kind and soft spoken man , he motivated me to take my health care seriously and got me results. I will surely miss our 15 minutes of therapy and conversations about the world and my health.
I will truly miss him. He was my doctor for many years. He was Great!