VENUS AND SERENA'S FATHER RICHARD WILLIAMS SPEAKS ABOUT LIFE, RACISM, AND REALITY IN NEW BOOK (3194 hits)
NEW YORK (FinalCall.com) - Richard Williams, best known as the father of tennis champions Venus and Serena Williams, has written his first book. It isn’t about how to play tennis.
“There are enough books out about tennis—tired of teaching tennis, tired of talking about tennis,” Mr. Williams told a standing-room only crowd at a mid-Manhattan Barnes & Noble bookstore May 7, the day after the release of “Black and White: The Way I See It.”
“I wanted to write a book of encouragement; the importance of my life and who I really am,” the 72-year-old icon said proudly.
In the book, Mr. Williams looks back at the 2012 Wimbledon championship match, and how Serena had to overcome a life-threatening medical problem to reach the final: “That morning so far from the place I was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. Wimbledon, with its White rule and its traditions and its royalty, was the other end of the world. Yet, were things so very different? In tennis, just as in Shreveport, there was a crowd and I had often heard it grow ugly.”
The interview with The Final Call ended with Mr. Williams noting that every race in the world with the exception of the Black man in America “knows a lot about themselves.” Blacks in the U.S. would be more independent if they knew their history, he said.
“I still hear people calling me ‘n----r’, I don’t know why people are calling it the ‘n’ word, call it what it is,” he told The Final Call, during a quick 15-minute interview.
Mr. Williams had been in New York City since May 4 promoting the book and was scheduled to travel by train to Philadelphia right after his May 7 book signing.
“My mother made me leave Shreveport because she was afraid I would get myself killed,” he said, doubling up in laughter. Born February 16, 1942 to Julia Mae Williams, he was one of six children, and the only boy.
During his talk before the book signing he spoke of being beaten by a White man at age five-and-a-half, because he dared to touch the man’s hand while giving him money and another beating by a White man at the age of eight. “The most important lesson from this was that my mother would never allow me to use White folks’ prejudice as an excuse for failure,” he said.
“From that I learned not to allow anyone to define how and what I would do in life,” he told The Final Call. In the book Richard Williams shares a poem he wrote especially for Serena during her illness:
“Step forward so you can see the light of day and know you are capable of conquering fear, defeating feelings of inadequacy, and rising above life’s circumstances. One who is able to prevail Is a shining example of power, strength, and confidence. It’s just a matter of faith.”
Richard Williams also shared how one night he decided to dress up as a KKK member and attend a rally at the age of nine. They were getting ready to lynch a Black man. “Well, I was able to get him out of there with my squirrel gun; and believe me I rode my bicycle faster than ever before. And that is the beginning of my thinking in Black and White,” he said.
Mr. Williams has no problem addressing the perception of him as an “angry Black man.” “Listen here, anger was my life: the Whites Only, Colored Only signs. You never knew, being a Black man, what would happen to you,” he stressed.
Mr. Williams left Shreveport and headed to Chicago, later to Lansing, Mich., and finally to Compton, California—always an entrepreneur, always following his own dictates.
“I taught tennis to my daughters by reading books and teaching them dedication, commitment and responsibility,” he said.
When a member of the audience asked why he never allowed Serena and Venus play on the Junior Tennis circuit, he said: “I witnessed how badly those young people behave and talked back to their parents; so I decided that wasn’t the way I wanted to raise my girls.”
Teaching children accountability is the greatest lesson, next in line is loving children, Mr. Williams insisted. “But, never take away the lesson of responsibility from your child,” he stressed over and over during his talk. And, Mr. Williams added, allow them to make a mistake.
“Some people call me a tennis coach; well, I have always been a father first,” Mr. Williams said. “I have worked hard to be a good father to my daughters, because I wanted to know how it would feel to be a good dad—me not having one.”
Looking out into the audience, he declared, a dad is not someone who just makes a child!
The Final Call asked if he ever had an opportunity to talk to the late Earl Woods, father of golf champion Tiger Woods. “We met briefly a couple of times, but I always wanted to ask him how did he see it (American racism), how did he put the program together for his son to follow,” said Mr. Williams.
The interview with The Final Call ended with Mr. Williams noting that every race in the world with the exception of the Black man in America “knows a lot about themselves.” Blacks in the U.S. would be more independent if they knew their history, he said.
Asked his opinion of “Muhammad’s Economic Blueprint” as presented by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, which calls for 16 million wage earners to give 35 cents a week to amass over $291 million in one year for Black economic development, beginning with the purchase of farmland, Venus and Serena’s dad responded: “Min. Farrakhan is an unbelievable man, a blessing from God. He doesn’t speak on an issue unless he studies it—knows the marketplace. I admire Min. Farrakhan.”
How important is getting land? Mr. Williams grew up in Shreveport picking cotton alongside his mother as a sharecropper on a farm. Land ownership is imperative, he said.
Someone in the audience asked Mr. Williams, why there aren’t more Black tennis players in the U.S.? “Racism and fear,” he said emphatically. “Look, if the door was opened for more Blacks, they would dominate tennis just like in other sports,” he noted before breaking into a loud laugh.
“One thing you can count on from Richard Williams is the truth,” he said. “And where did I get that from: my mother.”
“Oh, yes, America is the most prejudiced place in the world!” Mr. Williams added.
Even with the racism around, Mr. Williams has proven to be a great father and his daughters are strong in opposition. They are both true winners of tennis and motivation.
Nice post Butterfly. :)
Saturday, May 24th 2014 at 8:17AM
MIISRAEL Bride
I've read a few excerpts and Richard holds nothing back. He shoots straight from the hip and I know this book is going to make the tennis establishment feel some kind of way. People criticize and malign him, but he did the impossible with his children and beat the odds and made history.
Saturday, May 24th 2014 at 2:39PM
Siebra Muhammad
He said, how one night he decided to dress up as a KKK member and attend a rally at the age of nine. It kind of hard to believe that no one recognized his eyes even with his face covered.(smile) A squirrel gun?
Sunday, May 25th 2014 at 11:55PM
Helen Lofton
Excerpt from the book BLACK AND WHITE: The Way I See It by Richard Williams:
"The world may now see me as a famous man in control of his destiny, but no one knows how much my early life defined me as a child, and later, as a husband and a father. As early as I remember, I hated my name because my father’s love did not come with it. It would always remind me of the man who left me alone, who abused my mother, and who put me way behind the starting line in the race of life.
As a child, I struggled to understand why my father didn’t want me and why he didn’t love me. Even now, those questions remain, and I am rarely comfortable with people, or within myself, regardless of the respect I have gained.
In Shreveport, my family and I lived in a three-room shack on East Seventy-Ninth Street, next to the railroad tracks. The house was so raggedy a strong wind could have blown it down. When my father never gave anything to me, I decided I was going to give my family everything I had. The more I worked, the more I helped Mama and my sisters, and the prouder of myself I became.
I became fascinated with stealing at the age of eight. The money I brought home barely made ends meet but we survived. I used to go out in the woods and hunt bullfrogs to eat, and fish, and shoot rabbits, and steal chickens. One day, I bought some meat from the market and found maggots in it. It was winter and we were so hungry I could not force myself to throw it away. I cooked it, maggots and all. It wasn’t the first time we ate tainted or spoiled meat. We couldn’t throw anything away, not even bad meat.
I became fascinated with stealing at the age of eight. I don’t know if the thrill was being able to get away with a crime, or that the crime was against the white man. Either way, it was the start of a prosperous career. At twelve, I started a produce garden in our backyard to stock a farm stand. Whatever I could not grow, I confiscated — stole — from white people. I stole watermelons, peaches, strawberries, blackberries, tomatoes, hickory nuts, and pecans. Pecans were my biggest seller during Christmas. When I was at school, I hired the men who loitered on street corners to work the farm stand for me.
By the time I was thirteen, my business ventures were profitable enough to move us into a little-better house at 514 East Seventy-Seventh.
My new best friend was a boy named Lil Man, who ran with the Cedar Grove Gang. Lil Man always had a sly look on his face and wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything. He also had a reputation for stealing in broad daylight.
"Man, I can steal anything. One time I crawled under Old Man Thomas’s fence and stole a pig. And I’m gon’ do it agin, Richard.”
Old Man Thomas was a white farmer who lived on the outskirts of town. A member of the Ku Klux Klan, Thomas had already killed two Negroes who tried to imitate Lil Man’s success. . The last time I saw Lil Man was by the well when I went to get some water. He had his cap backward and was grinning. Three days later, some boys hunting in the woods found his lifeless body hanging from a tree. Both his hands had been cut off. Rumor had it that Mr. Thomas was having a Ku Klux Klan meeting when Lil Man tried to steal another of his pigs. The Klan caught Lil Man and decided to make an example out of him. They bound his hands and feet and tied a handkerchief around his mouth. They cut off both his hands with an ax and lynched his shocked body from a tree. Then they hung Lil Man’s hands on the fence as a warning to other n------ who thought about stealing. There was no formal investigation. No one was ever questioned. Nobody was able to prove who killed Lil Man because no one ever tried.
The Klan rampaged through the South, confident it could violate us with impunity. Only one time did they ever come close to getting to me. To this day, I don’t really remember the reason for the fight, or why it escalated to the point where I was fighting off three white men in the street, covered in dirt and blood, while a crowd watched. I looked up, and there was my father standing among the white crowd, watching me get beaten without so much as lifting a finger to help me. He didn’t call out. He didn’t wade in. He just watched as I tried to survive the onslaught, and as the mob turned in his direction seeking another black man to target with their anger and hatred, he ran off, leaving me there alone.
It is a terrible thing to be so unloved, to know your father would rather let you die than lift a finger to help you, to watch him run off and leave you all alone. It was a rejection so cold it remains burnt in my memory and, in the end, it did what even white people could never do, hurt me so deep in my soul that I have never forgotten or forgiven.
Anger was my life. I found strength challenging the Klan to see how far I could go. Before I left Shreveport for Chicago, I planned to give back a piece of what had been given to me all my life. I was going to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.
My friends Big Mo and Louis were having s*x with a white farmer’s daughter named Lucy Clavens. Lucy did anything for s*x. Lucy was like an obedient puppy, and I knew she would tell Louis where her father kept his Klan outfit. Big Mo found it just where she said it was, hanging on a nail in the toolshed. My concern was hiding my skin color. The mask only had little round eyeholes so it showed no skin, and the gown was floor-length. I had my sisters buy makeup from the pharmacy that turned my hands into convincing white skin at night.
After dark, I rode my dark blue bicycle into a white neighborhood with the KKK outfit neatly folded inside my jacket. I hid the bicycle in the bushes, walked three blocks, ducked into an alley, and put on the hood and robe and rubbed my hands in the makeup. I walked two blocks before selecting my victims — a white farmer and his teenaged son sitting on a park bench, smoking and drinking. They both wore work boots, T-shirts, and overalls. I smelled their smoke, heard the scratchy sound as they rubbed their stubbly faces.
My hatred was up, and so was my longing to pay back somebody, anybody, for everything that ever happened to me. I felt the power anonymity gave me. I picked up a stick. My attack was quick and vicious. I crept up behind them in the darkness, brought the stick down on their heads, and they cried out and fell to the ground.
I ran away as fast as I could. I pedaled slowly down the street until I was outside the white neighborhood, then pedaled like the devil himself was chasing me. When I pulled into my yard, my heart was racing from the adrenaline rush."
