Archibald (“Archie”) Franklin Williams was born, May 1, 1915 and was able to pursue his athletic passion at Berkeley. While the coaches for baseball, football and basketball excluded blacks, Brutus Hamilton, the track and field coach, showed no prejudice towards his runners.
“He showed a lot of interest in me as a student and an athlete,” said Williams in his oral history. “We had to get good grades to be able to run.”
Though Williams came to Berkeley primarily for an education – he was fascinated with airplanes and majored in mechanical engineering – he signed up for the team because he had done competitive running in junior college.
Within six months of his arrival at Berkeley, Williams won the NCAA championship in the 400-yard dash, then a gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the same event. The black athletes, ironically, were treated very well in Germany, Williams said. “We didn’t have to ride in the back of the bus there.”
A serious hamstring tear ended Williams running career, but he pursued his academics with the same vigor. But even in the academic realm, he faced racism. He wanted to join the student branch of the Mechanical Engineering Society, but was denied membership. He signed up for the newly created Civilian Pilot Training program on campus, but was told he wasn’t eligible. Coach Hamilton managed to get him in, though.
After graduating from Berkeley in 1939, Williams went to Mississippi to train black pilots, who came to be known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Williams later joined the Air Force and retired a Lieutenant Colonel in 1966. After that, he taught math and was a coach at Drake High School in Marin County. He became a teacher and taught for 21 years at Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo.He died Died: June 24,1993
