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Lloyd Williams, Who Helped Spur Harlem's Revival, Dies at 80
Lloyd Williams, who rallied the business community and united commerce with culture to promote a modern Harlem Renaissance, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 80.
His death, in a hospital, was caused by prostate cancer, his son, Lateef Adé Williams, said.
Mr. Williams was among the last surviving members of Harlem's Old Guard, which was led by four Democratic elected officials: Representative Charles B. Rangel, Mayor David N. Dinkins, Manhattan Borough President Percy E. Sutton and Basil A. Paterson, who served as a state senator, a deputy mayor and New York's secretary of state.
Mr. Williams's only public office was the chairmanship of the community board that encompassed Harlem.
But for more than half a century, he held sway as a civic leader from his base in a venerable business organization — the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce — that spurred residential and commercial development, tourism, and pride in the neighborhood's history and potential as it hurdled the social unrest, declining health and housing abandonment that accelerated in the tumultuous 1960s.
In 1970, Mr. Williams was recruited by Hope Stevens, president of what was known until 1993 as the Uptown Chamber of Commerce, to serve as its first Black vice president of programs. He was promoted to executive vice president under Lloyd E. Dickens in 1976. When Mr. Dickens died in 1988, Mr. Williams succeeded him as chief executive and president, a post he held for the rest of his life.
He was credited as a founder and architect of Harlem Week, a festival that was begun in 1974 as Harlem Day by Mr. Sutton, as a one-time event to help counter the neighborhood's social and economic decline. It was expanded to a week the next year.
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