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Arthur Robinson Williams

Biography

As president of a high school AIDS Awareness club for four years, Arthur Williams raised $10,000 from student fundraisers, regularly cooked dinner for people dying with AIDS, and designed a two-day curriculum on AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases for his own school and others in the county. Trouble erupted, however, after the local newspaper quoted him as "saying everyone should be taught how to use condoms properly." Outraged citizens protested. "It was a momentous experience," Arthur says. "I learned about intolerance. Prejudice. Ignorance. Some of it my own."

It also was a career-shaping experience. "Now I don't 'volunteer,'" he says. "I create. I lead. I look for solutions. I meet my neighbors. I organize. I explore." He anchors his volunteer efforts in "collaboration, ownership, dialogue, and accountability."

At Princeton, Arthur created and led groups that channeled students into social justice activities. The Princeton Justice Project successfully lobbied the governor for an executive order allowing needle exchanges throughout the state, and the legislature for an increase in "standard of need" benchmarks that determine public assistance. He partnered with local and national nonprofits in writing his senior thesis on state policy and syringe deregulation, and earned an A+ on the project from his professor. Following graduation, Arthur worked on a Reach Out '56 Fellowship documenting drugs and addiction nationwide with photography and ethnography through a project he developed and posted online at www.Unacceptablelosses.org.

Throughout his career, Arthur aims to blend his organizing skills with medical training, "to bring together individuals foreign to one another for the purposes of building community and achieving progress."

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