Writer

Junius.

Meet Junius Williams, a nationally recognized attorney, musician, educator and independent thinker who has been at the forefront of the Civil Rights and Human Rights Movements in this country for decades.

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Book Club

Unfinished Agenda:
Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power

Author: Junius Williams

Unfinished Agenda offers an inside look at the Black Power Movement that emerged during the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties.

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Praise for Unfinished Agenda

This absolutely riveting story resonates well beyond the emblematic city of Newark ,NJ. An activist combining ivy-league sophistication and street smarts, Junius Williams helped make the urban north's civil rights revolution. Although his "people's power" inevitably ran up against entrenched institutional power, blacks as well as white, Williams still inspires and instructs a new generation for which this should be recommended reading.

Nell Irvin PainterEdwards Professor of American History, Emerita, Princeton University

Featured Writing

NJ.com – I felt the ‘Bern.’ So what do I do now? | Opinion

By Junius Williams I watched Senator Bernie Sanders’ announcement that he was suspending his campaign for the presidency of the United States with the same emotion I felt with Jesse Jackson’s concession speech at the 1988 Democratic Party Convention in Atlanta Georgia on behalf of the Rainbow Coalition. I felt then America lost an opportunity

HUFF POST – An Open Letter to Black Lives Matter

I want to first commend Black Lives Matters for your willingness to stand in the face of danger and speak truth to power. As young people, you are indeed the heirs apparent to resistance organizations from the not-too-distant past. But as I survey American political landscape in the context of the current election for President,

HUFF POST: When a College Chancellor Supports Her Students

Within the last few weeks, colleges all over the country have erupted in protest. Most of them were in solidarity with the concept “Black Lives Matter,” and reflect the growing awareness of students of all races and nationalities that they can’t be free until black victims of police violence are free to walk the streets

HUFF-POST: In Post-Civil Rights America Do We Know How to Organize?

In Selma Alabama, at the 50th year anniversary of Bloody Sunday, people from all over the world gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge for a symbolic march to the other side. But there were no leaders to lead, no plan to make it over and back. Where were the traditional leaders? Many of them were

Voices

Nell Irvin PainterEdwards Professor of American History, Emerita, Princeton University

We thought about this. I don't know anybody else more qualified for this post (as Newark Historian)....A lot of time people take on activism minus the history. It's important that we always understand the context of history. Giving Junius this honor kind of brings both of these together: history and activism.

Ras BarakaMayor of Newark