Kenny J. Williams (1927–2003) was an African American scholar and author, and an English professor at Duke University. Williams was born in

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

, (hence the name "Kenny") and received her PhD from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1959. She was from 1977 until her death, a professor in Duke University's Department of English. Her father was Joseph Harrison Jackson, President of the National Baptist Convention from 1941 to 1990. In 1986, she received the MidAmerica Award from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature for distinguished contributions to the study of same. Williams was appointed in 1991 to the National Council on the Humanities by President George H. W. Bush. She was member of the Executive Board of the American Literature Association, and also served on the Council of the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

Published works

As author

* ''Chicago's Public Wits: A Chapter in the American Comic Spirit'' (1983 Louisiana State University Press) * ''A Storyteller and a City: Sherwood Anderson's Chicago''(1988 Northern IL University Press) * ''Prairie voices: a literary history of Chicago from the frontier to 1893'' (1980 Townsend Press), * ''They also spoke: an essay on Negro literature in America, 1787–1930'' (1970 Townsend Press)

As illustrator

* ''Essays – Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Poetry'', Ann Plato (author) (1988 Oxford University Press)

External links

Campus article on Upstream

New Sense: A Publication of the Duke Conservative Union. In Memoriam: Kenny Williams (1927–2003), by Berin Szoka
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Kenny 20th-century American educators African-American writers American writers Writers from Kentucky Writers from North Carolina Duke University faculty Deaths from cancer 1927 births 2003 deaths University of Pennsylvania alumni 20th-century African-American educators 21st-century African-American people