VIRTUAL: Dr. Robert L. Williams II Portrait Unveiling

Join the department of African and African American Studies for a virtual celebration as we honor the life and legacy of our department’s founder, Robert L. Williams II with a special portrait unveiling.

4:00 | Welcome - Chancellor Andrew D. Martin
4:10 | Tribute - Professor Gerald Early
4:20 | The Creative Process - Professor Jamie Adams
4:25 | Contributions to the Academy - Professor John Baugh
4:35 | Remarks - Y'vonne Williams Johnson and Dr. Robert A. Williams
4:55 | Department of Psychology Announcement - Professor Jeff Zacks
4:56 | Closing Remarks - Professor Shanti Parikh
5:05 | Benediction - Reverend Douglass Petty

About Robert L. Williams II, professor emeritus of psychological and brain sciences and of African and African American studies:
A founding member and early president of the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi), Robert L. Williams II was the founding director of Washington University’s Black Studies program, now the Department of African and African-American Studies. An early critic of racial bias in standardized testing and a proponent of African philosophical traditions, he is perhaps best known for coining the term “Ebonics,” a mash-up of “ebony” and “phonics,” to refer to the vernacular English often spoken by African Americans. In 1972, he developed the Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity, which made national headlines for demonstrating the cultural biases inherent in standardized testing.

Williams’ conception of Ebonics grew out of a national conference on “The Cognitive and Language Development of Black Children,” which he organized in St. Louis in 1973. Two years later, he edited and published the influential collection “Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks.” Other major works include “The Collective Black Mind: Toward an Afrocentric Theory of Black Personality” (1980), “Racism Learned at an Early Age through Racial Scripting” (2007), a history of the ABPsi (2008) and dozens of scholarly papers. In 2014, Washington University honored his legacy with a daylong conference on diversity in academia. In 2017, he received a Legacy Award at the university’s Trailblazers recognition ceremony.