Kale Williams papers, 1950-2008, bulk 1964-1995

Processed with funding provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources- funded Black Metropolis Research Consortium "Color Curtain Processing Project."

This collection is open for research use.

Copyright may be retained by the creators of items, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law, unless otherwise noted.

Materials were a gift of Kale and Helen Williams (accession #: 2013.10.1 and 2014.16.1).

Kale Williams papers (Chicago History Museum) plus a detailed description, date, and box/folder number of a specific item.

Reports, publications, correspondence, memoranda, briefings, research materials, and newspaper clippings comprising the papers of Kale Williams, former director of the Midwest Office of the American Friends Service Committee and the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities. In 1951, he began his career with the American Friends Service Committee. Williams also worked as a part of the Chicago Freedom Movement with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and starting in 1972 he was the executive director of the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities.

Kale Williams was born in 1925 in Cedar Vale, Kansas. He served in the United States Navy during World War II. His experiences in war had a direct impact on his embrace of pacifism. In 1951, he began work with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker service organization based in Chicago (Ill.). In 1958, he became the head of the Midwest office of the AFSC. The AFSC was heavily involved in the Chicago Freedom Movement, also referred to as the Chicago Open Housing Movement, and Williams worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during that time. From 1968 to 1970, Williams led an international Quaker team providing food and medical services to both Nigeria and Biafra during their civil war. In 1972, he became the executive director of the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities (LCMOC), the fair housing organization that was a direct outgrowth of the Chicago Freedom Movement. The LCMOC worked with investigators and lawyers on housing discrimination issues in Chicago. In 1994, Williams was invited to Loyola University Chicago as Visiting Professor of Applied Ethics. In 1996, he was appointed Senior Scholar in the Center for Urban Research and Learning at Loyola and held that position until 2011.

Related materials at Chicago History Museum, Research Center, include materials by and about the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities, the American Friends Service Committee, the Alliance to End Repression, and the Illinois Council to Repeal the Draft, cataloged separately.

• Names
  • Williams, Kale--Archives
  • Gautreaux, Dorothy--Trials, litigation, etc.
  • King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968
  • Raby, Al (Albert Anderson), 1933-1988
• Subject
  • American Friends Service Committee. Midwest Regional Office--Archives
  • Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities--Archives
  • Chicago Freedom Movement--Archives
  • Chicago Freedom Movement--Anniversaries, etc.
  • Chicago Housing Authority
  • Chicago (Ill.). Police Dept. Intelligence Section
  • African Americans--Illinois--Chicago Metropolitan Area
  • African Americans--Housing--Illinois--Chicago Metropolitan Area--20th century
  • Civil rights--Illinois--Chicago--20th century
  • Discrimination in housing--Illinois--Chicago Metropolitan Area
  • Discrimination in housing--Law and legislation--United States
  • Housing--Illinois--Chicago Metropolitan Area
  • Human rights workers--Illinois--Chicago
  • Police--Complaints against--Illinois--Chicago--20th century
  • Political activists--Illinois--Chicago
  • Public housing--Illinois--Chicago Metropolitan Area--20th century
  • Quakers--Illinois--Chicago
• Geographic Coverage
  • Chicago Metropolitan Area (Ill.)--Race relations--20th century
  • Chicago Metropolitan Area (Ill.)--Social conditions--20th century

The collection is arranged in five series with subsequent subseries by topic.

Series 1. American Friends Service Committee files, circa 1950-1993 (box 1-4)

Present in this series are materials from the 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement in which the Chicago branch of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) was involved. The materials include reports, statements, and briefings given by Kale Williams to the AFSC regarding equal housing and civil rights. Materials also include the Institutional Service Units of the AFSC, which aided students pursuing careers in the social sciences.

Series 2. Chicago public housing files, 1966-2008 (box 4-10)

This series consists of material related to involvement and interest in Chicago public housing and contains three sub-series.

Subseries 1. Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities files, 1975-2005 (box 4-6)

Materials from Williams' work as director of the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities (LCMOC) from 1972 to 1992 and materials while he remained active with the organization after his retirement. Topics are LCMOC's fight for fair housing policies in Chicago, most notably as a part of the Supreme Court case Hills v. Gautreaux. Documents include reports and studies about housing inequality conducted by the LCMOC, writings about Chicago housing, newspaper clippings about the LCMOC, and correspondence.

Subseries 2. Dialogue Group files, 1994-2003 (box 6-7)

The Dialogue Group worked to provide support for residents who had to be relocated during the Plan for Transformation of the Chicago Housing Authority which included the demolition of many high-rise public housing buildings. Materials include reports, consulting agreements, programs, and informational packets.

Subseries 3. Housing Mobility Conference files, 1987-1998 (box 7-10)

In 1994, Williams helped conduct the first national Housing Mobility Conference. Included are handwritten and typed notes by Williams, correspondence, and publications concerned with public housing and the conference.

Series 3. Chicago Freedom Movement files, 1966-2006 (box 11-14)

This series contains materials from the 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Al Raby to end racial segregation in Chicago. Williams was a member of the Chicago Freedom Movement Agenda Committee and this series includes programs and statements on the unfair housing market, the poor conditions of lower income housing, and other social and economic issues in Chicago. Also included in this series are materials pertaining to the Fulfilling the Dream 40th Anniversary Commemoration Conference of the Chicago Freedom Movement.

Series 4. Personal papers, 1959-2004 (box 15)

This series contains materials such as biographical sketches and newspaper clippings about Kale Williams. It also includes speeches and addresses, primarily on social issues, given by Williams from 1968-2004; fact sheets, court transcripts and exhibits from two class action suits, the Alliance to End Repression v. James Rochford, and the American Civil Liberties Union v. the City of Chicago, in which the Chicago Police Department's "red squad" was accused of spying on hundreds of thousands of private citizens and organizations, of which Williams was a plaintiff.

Series 5. Subject files, 1964-1996 (box 15)

This series is comprised of material collected by Williams such as reports, articles, and various newsletters. Most of the documents relate to Williams' interest in civil rights and public housing.