Real Housewives of Atlanta star Porsha Williams isn’t the smartest of the group–at least that’s the role she’s comfortable playing. But she does come from an influential family in Atlanta. Her grandfather is the late civil rights activist Hosea Williams. He was a trusted member of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s inner circle, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was the organizer behind all of King’s nonviolent protests. King called Williams his “bull in a china closet.” Williams was with King until the very end. He was one of the three men with King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel with Jesse Jackson and Ralph David Abernathy shortly before King was assassinated in Memphis.
After the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., Hosea Williams went on to establish the non-profit organization Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless. There is a street in Atlanta named Hosea L. Williams Drive. He was portrayed by Wendell Pierce in the 2014 film Selma.
Still from “Selma,” Hosea Williams portrayed by Wendell Pierce is to the left of MLK (David Oyelowo)
