Walter E. Williams: Scholar, Teacher, and Public Intellectual.

• Author: Hall, Abigail R.

Walter E. Williams, distinguished economist, professor, and prolific commentator passed away in December 2020 at the age of eighty-four, leaving a hole in the Economics Department at George Mason University and in the economics profession as a whole. His passing is a profound loss for his colleagues, his students, and all who champion individual liberty.

Williams's life is a remarkable story. His earliest years and experiences would shape the research for which he would become so well known and informed the worldview he so masterfully articulated. Born in 1936, he spent his early life with his sister and mother in one of the first federally funded housing projects in Philadelphia. Although he didn't care much for formal schooling, he was always interested in earning money. As a young man, he worked many jobs, including in a women's hat factory, where he taught himself to sew. It was while working as a cab driver that he met his future wife, Connie Taylor.

He was drafted into the army in 1959. Throughout his military tenure, Williams illustrated his characteristic wit, his commitment to liberal ideals, as well as a penchant for pushing the buttons of government establishment. While stationed in the southern United States, he made it a point to fight against racism and Jim Crow in whatever way he could. He made a habit of purposefully angering his white counterparts with inflammatory statements. In one such instance, he drew the ire of his fellow soldiers when he stated that he had seen his white girlfriend on American Bandstand. He was less than popular with his military superiors as well. When instructed to paint the entirety of a 2.5-ton truck, Williams obliged and painted not only the vehicle body but the mirrors and windows as well. He wasn't stopped until he began painting the tires. Angered by these and other instances of Williams's rebelliousness, an officer filed a bogus court-martial against him. The young Williams argued his own defense--and won.

He was then deployed to Korea, where he again found himself in hot water. Upon his arrival to the peninsula, he marked "Caucasian" for his race on a personnel form. When asked why he had not selected "Black," Williams replied that such an action would have resulted in being assigned the worst jobs. From Korea, Williams wrote to President John Kennedy, questioning the treatment of Blacks by the military and U.S. government. In the letter, those familiar with Williams's work can see the clear thinking and commitment to liberty for which he became so well known. "Should Negroes be relieved of their service obligation or continue defending and dying for empty promises of freedom and equality?" he wrote. "Or should we demand human rights as our Founding Fathers did.... I contend that we relieve ourselves of oppression in a manner that is in keeping with the great heritage of our nation" (qtd. in Root 2011).

After his time in the army, Williams turned to his education and earned his BA in economics from California State College. He then entered graduate school at the...