John Alfred Williams (born 5 December 1925) is an African American author, journalist and academic.
Williams was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and, after naval service in World War II, graduated in 1950 from Syracuse University. His novels, which include The Angry Ones (1960) and The Man Who Cried I Am (1967) are mainly about the black experience in white America. The Man Who Cried I Am, a fictionalized account of the life and death of Richard Wright, introduced the King Alfred Plan - a fictional CIA-led scheme supporting an international effort to eliminate people of African descent. This "plan" has since been cited as fact by some members of the Black Community and conspiracy theorists.
In the early 1980s, Williams and the composer and flautist Leslie Burrs, with the agreement of Mercer Ellington, started to collaborate on the completion of Queenie Pie, an opera by Duke Ellington which had been left unfinished at his death. The project fell through, and the opera was eventually completed by other hands.[1]
In 1970 Williams received the Syracuse University Centennial Medal for Outstanding Achievement,[2] and in 1998 his Safari West won the American Book Award.[3] He is a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
In 2003, Williams performed a spoken word piece on Transform, an album by rock band Powerman 5000. At the time, his son Adam Williams was the band's guitarist.