RIP Walter Williams
Walter Williams has died at the age of 83. He was an economist of the classical liberal and libertarian persuasion. Like Thomas Sowell – with whose work I am far more familiar – Williams was a black man possessing the special courage it takes to be black and on the right.
Here is Williams speaking with Mark Levin on liberty (2018):
Some interesting facts about Williams’ early days:
He grew up in Philadelphia. The family initially lived in West Philadelphia, moving to North Philadelphia and the Richard Allen housing projects when Williams was ten years old. His neighbors included a young Bill Cosby. Williams knew many of the individuals that Cosby speaks of from his childhood, including Weird Harold and Fat Albert.
Following graduation from Benjamin Franklin High School, William went to California to live with his father and attend one semester at Los Angeles City College. He later returned to Philadelphia and drove taxi for Yellow Cab Company. In 1959, he was drafted into the military and served as a Private in the United States Army. While stationed in the South, he “waged a one man battle against Jim Crow from inside the army”. He challenged the racial order with provocative statements to his fellow soldiers. This resulted in an overseeing officer filing a court-martial proceeding against Williams. Williams argued his own case and was found not guilty…
Speaking of his early college days, Williams said: “I was more than anything a radical. I was more sympathetic to Malcolm X than Martin Luther King because Malcolm X was more of a radical who was willing to confront discrimination in ways that I thought it should be confronted, including perhaps the use of violence. But I really just wanted to be left alone. I thought some laws, like minimum-wage laws, helped poor people and poor black people and protected workers from exploitation. I thought they were a good thing until I was pressed by professors to look at the evidence.” While at UCLA, Williams came into contact with economists such as Armen Alchian, James M. Buchanan, and Axel Leijonhufvud who challenged his assumptions.
While Williams was at UCLA, Thomas Sowell arrived on campus in 1969 as a visiting professor. Although he never took a class from Dr. Sowell, the two met and began a friendship that lasted for decades.
Discovering that Sowell and Williams were friends is no surprise.
RIP, Walter Williams.
Very sad news indeed! He was a very bright and very engaging intellectual in a field not noted for either clear thinkers or good writers, and his voice will certainly be missed; rather strangely, his latest column (on black education) has just been posted at Townhall. It will be interesting to discover how much attention is given in the MSM to the passing of such a distinguished citizen of the republic.
I thought some laws, like minimum-wage laws, helped poor people and poor black people and protected workers from exploitation. I thought they were a good thing until I was pressed by professors to look at the evidence.
–Walter Williams
“Look at the evidence.”
Hmm…a new-fangled notion, but not without its suasion. Tell me more.
RIP.
Who will take up Walter’s mantle?
Most WW II veterans are long dead – and the true Civil Rights activists are of the funeral age as well, like so many early boomers and even boomer rock starts.
Walter Williams was a large figure among Libertarians and free market folk. Not quite a giant – perhaps missing a Nobel.
He will be missed.
Glenn Loury is already establishing his own “black conservative friendly / evidence based” economics. Plus blogging/ facebook and video.
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/60516
Not familiar with his scholarly work. I enjoyed his verve and his humor and how these informed his take on the black experience in America. I think every segment of the community would benefit if young blacks go to school on Williams.
Glenn Loury is already establishing his own “black conservative friendly / evidence based” economics. Plus blogging/ facebook and video.
Loury is 72 and has been publishing scholarly work since 1976, with dozens of papers in at least three departments of economics – urban economics, resource economics, and labor economics. He’s also written quite a bit for general audiences. Thos. Sowell at his most scholarly is an intellectual historian; Loury the scholar is an economist tout court.
I became familiar with Walter Williams through his appearances on Rush Limbaugh’s show. He was a guest host on several occasions. He was witty, outspoken, and full of wisdom. In fact, I found Thomas Sowell through Walter’s references to him. In his confident attitude and attention to using facts found through diligent research, he reminded me very much of a black pilot I knew in the Navy. There weren’t a lot of black Navy officers in those days, much less black aviators. His name was Ray Boone and he was a force of nature. Smart, witty, confident, and energetic; he was a treat to be around. The first time I heard Walter Williams on the Limbaugh show, I thought Walter and Ray must have been twins who were separated at birth. So much alike in their personalities were they.
When we lose this sort of man, we’re saddened, but have to rejoice that we were able to know his intellect.
RIP
Very sad. RIP.
Recently watched this on Amazon Prime. Well worth the hour spent
Walter Williams: Suffer No Fools
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4188176/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
Saw an interview with Thomas Sowell and the interviewer made the observation that there was a growing number of black, free market intellectuals. Sowell laughed and said there was a time when he and Walt Williams avoided flying on the same plane together.
Walter Williams was a great man who, like his friend Thomas Sowell faced great challenges and overcame them. That he could set aside his early prejudices when confronted by data that disproved his biases, speakes volumes to his character.
In Levin’s interview, I was struck by two items; the above and William’s concern as to the effectiveness of a Convention of the States. That two had been an early concern for me. There is no current possibility that 38 states would vote to approve actual reforms that addressed among other issues, the Left’s March Through the Institutions.
Yet, I also concluded some time ago with Levin, that a successful Article V Convention of the States is the only way to restore the consent of the governed, that also preserves liberty and the individual’s pursuit of happiness with only the restriction that one individual’s rights stop… where another individual’s rights begin.
That conundrum; that a new Convention of the States is an existential necessity but impossible to implement with the political divide as it currently stands has forced me to the conclusion that in order for such a Convention to succeed, the elements that would derail such a Convention cannot be in attendence.
And that, that condition will only be possible in the aftermath of a Civil War in which those supporters of the Constitution achieve a decisive victory over those who consciously and ignorantly support tyranny.
I do not welcome a civil war. I simply see it as the only alternative to the Left’s ideological imperative, a tyranny it is driven to impose.
As a magazine writer in the early 90s, I had the pleasure of sharing a very fine dinner, and some very fine wine, with Williams. A relaxed and good-humored companion, laughingly recalling, for instance, the regular humiliations his uncompromising HS English teacher — “a tiny lady with an oversized brain, who couldn’t have cared less what color I was” — subjected him to for any infelicitous usages. I recall that Philadelphia evening as the first time I’d heard the term, “poverty pimps.” Pleased to add I still have a copy of that magazine piece.
Le+Mot+Juste,
A treasure indeed.
Just to mention, he attended Ben Franklin HS, which had (IIRC) a couple of high school team chess championships in the late 70s and early 80s. Not rich, just smart and hard working. God bless them all. Not that this dates me at all. 🙂
I think I first encountered him via his columns on Townhall back in the early pyjamas days… Then also guest hosting Neil Boortz, as well.
He and Sowell both represent(ed) a voice of reason among all the race baiting swine.
He and Sowell both represent(ed) a voice of reason among all the race baiting swine.
And only Sowell and Loury are left. A Dark Age may be ahead.