Researching Samuel Williams

In 1834, Williams quit as secretary of the Austin Colony to work as a merchant, then formalized a partnership with Thomas F. McKinney. The next year he also made deals with the provincial government in Monclova for a bank charter and for large tracts of land in Texas. At that time he was a representative in the Coahuila and Texas legislature. However, by 1836, Williams and his partner, Thomas F. McKinney, supported the Texas Revolution against Mexico. Williams borrowed money against his family's lines of credit, which the partners applied to ships and ammunition on behalf of the rebel government.

After Texas gained independence, Williams focused most of his business activities in Galveston, and represented Galveston County for one term in the Republic of Texas legislature. Through his partnership with McKinney he was invested in the Galveston City Company, and established diverse business interests there. The partnership ended when their business was acquired by Henry Howell Williams in 1842.

After 1842, Williams worked toward establishing a bank in Texas. He briefly returned to public service when he accepted a diplomatic mission to negotiate a treaty with Mexico, which had still not recognized the sovereignty of the Republic of Texas. In the first year of Texas statehood, he ran twice for the U.S. House of Representatives, losing both times. In 1848 Williams succeeded in introducing the first bank in Texas: the Commercial & Agricultural Bank (C & A Bank). This was the only institution to legally issue paper money, though his charter and the bank's practices faced legal challenges throughout its existence, including anti-banking legislation and scrutiny from various Texas Attorneys General. Favorable decisions rendered by the district courts saved Williams and his bank for about four years. C & A Bank remained solvent during the Panic of 1857, but anti-banking politics were on the rise. Many of Williams' friends and allies distanced themselves from the bank and encouraged him to give up the project, but he resisted their advice. He died in 1858 after a short illness.

He was born in Pontypridd to station master Connell Williams and Annie Williams. At a young age he worked in the Rhondda Valley coal mines before going to sea with the Royal Navy around 1902, eventually settling in Fremantle, Western Australia in 1909. He became a diver and mariner, and in 1918 married Olive Elizabeth Harland, with whom he had a daughter. In 1924 he came to Sydney with a dredge and was employed by the Maritime Services Board. Long involved in the Labor Party and the union movement, he was state secretary of the Dredge and Maritime Service Employees Association from 1939 to 1957. From 1943 to 1962 he was a Labor member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. Williams died in Sydney in 1962.

Williams aided in the Atlanta Student Movement and helped found both the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) and the Atlanta Summit Leadership Council, which then helped to organize the Atlanta branch of the Community Relations Commission (CRC). Simultaneously he was co-chairman of the Atlanta Summit Leadership Conference and acting president of the Atlanta Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

In 1947, Williams became pastor at Friendship Baptist Church and lectured at more than 20 colleges and universities throughout the South preaching that men should lead their lives through principle and moral awareness. In his final years of life Williams expanded his sermons to focus on a non-violent approach, arguing that society is a slave to social systems, social patterns, and burdened by the anxiety to destroy one another. This message was conveyed through a sermon that he dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr, entitled "He was no Criminal," in 1969.

Williams died from complications as a result of a major operation. The Negro History Collection at Atpanta libraries was renamed the Samuel W. Williams Collection on Black America and is now housed at the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, part of the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System in Atlanta's Sweet Auburn Historic District.