30 | The Writer • April 2020
that changed his life,” he recounts.
The book was African American
Studies professor Nathan McCall’s
Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young
Black Man in America. “It talks about a
young black man who has no power
over his life,” Williams says. “Carrying
a gun gives him a sense of power. The
book was so emotional that my friend
had to put it down for a time. ‘This is
my life,’ he told me.”
Williams believes those on the out-
side can gain tremendous insights
about marginalized communities
when they pay attention to those
books most revered by people living
behind bars – books like The Autobi-
ography of Malcolm X. “Many times,
people in marginalized communities
are told they’re not important, they
can never be anything,” he says.
“Authors like McCall, Malcolm...they
say you can be somebody.”
That message of resilience and hope
captivated him as well, propelling him
headlong into the hip hop culture that
exploded through the 1980s and ’90s –
a culture in which he performed under
the name “The Incredible Mr. Freeze.”
The rhythms and syntax of rappers
reminded him of poems by Paul Lau-
rence Dunbar, the inspiration behind
many Harlem Renaissance writers.
“Dunbar wrote traditional poetry,
but he also wrote in the idioms of the
common people in a way that someone
with a third-grade education would
express things,” Williams explains.
“Rap is rhythm and poetry, but it
doesn’t follow some of the rules.”
In the late 1990s, now living in Oak-
land, he began to write part-time –
both memoir and urban fiction based
on what he saw on the streets around
him. His characters were pimps and
sex workers, drug dealers and addicts
and community college valedictorians
who joined gangs to earn money for
university tuition.
Williams notes that the city has
always been a place of struggle. On an
evening in 2002, the struggle hit
uncomfortably close to home. A spray
of bullets ricocheted outside his win-
dow, and he woke up the next morning
to find a teddy-bear and helium-bal-
loon shrine to the young person who’d
been murdered. Heartsick at the pov-
erty and addiction around him, Wil-
liams committed to a life of ministering
on the streets, earning a master of
divinity degree.
“I looked for all the tools I had to
make a difference,” he says. “I used my
skills as a fiction writer to write books
that mirror the experiences of young
people growing up in the inner city, to
show that there’s another way out. I
used poetry, hip-hop prayers. People
need prayer. They need outlets for
their pain.”
He recalls leading a poetry group
in 2008. One afternoon each week,“I USED MY SKILLS AS A FICTION
WRITER TO WRITE BOOKS THAT
MIRROR THE EXPERIENCES OF
YOUNG PEOPLE GROWING UP IN
THE INNER CITY, TO SHOW THAT
THERE’S ANOTHER WAY OUT.”