Profile: Dr. J. H. G. Williams
Physician and Surgeon
Graduate of Shaw University, Raleigh, NC
John Henry Giles (J.H.G.) Williams was born on September 7, 1872, in Anderson, SC to Coleman Williams and Alice Sherrard. He briefly attended Paine College in Augusta, but he had to delay his studies due to financial challenges. Williams furthered his education by attending Howard University before graduating in 1904 from Shaw University, a private historically Black college (HBCU) in Raleigh, NC. He began practicing medicine in Columbus, GA before relocating to Milledgeville, GA. where he practiced medicine and surgery. Williams married Minnie Maud Miller of Augusta on June 20, 1905, with whom he parented two children, John Henry Giles, Jr. and Grace Maud. Mrs. Minnie Maud Williams operated a private school for Black children at the site of the present-day Slater’s Funeral Home in Milledgeville. Dr. J.H.G. Williams later married Ella Alexander.
In Milledgeville, Dr. Williams operated a drug store and was a member of the C.M.E. Church, where he served as both a steward and a trustee. He later relocated to Macon, where he operated his business at 552 New Street and lived at 659 Spring Street. Williams was a neighbor of another prominent African American Maconite, Ruth Hartley Mosley. The site where his home was located is now a parking lot. He was a member of the Macon Academy of Medicine, which included other Black physicians, pharmacists, surgeons, and dentists. He died of a heart attack on April 4, 1930, and was interred at Oak Ridge Cemetery. Hutchings Funeral Home provided services.
What happened to the Williams Children?
Like many Southern African Americans, between 1910-1970, the Williams children left Georgia and participated in the Great Migration, a mass movement of African Americans from the Southern United States to northern, and western cities.
Both Williams’s children relocated to Washington, DC. Grace Maud Kelly (nee Williams) graduated from Howard University, and married Paul Kelly, who once published an entertainment newspaper in DC called “Nitelife.” She was a school teacher at Randall Junior High School, and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. She passed away in Washington, DC in 1961.
John Henry Giles Williams, Jr. also relocated to Washington, D.C., where he worked at the Social Security Administration, among other occupations He died on May 10, 1988.