North Nashville (Jefferson Street). The lawsuit was filed against Governor Ellington, Commissioner Speight, and Mayor Briley of Nashville. In 1969 Williams was elected as a Democrat to the Tennessee State Senate from a newly configured district centering on the historically black section of North Nashville. He was the first African American senator elected in the state of Tennessee. From this base, he became highly influential in the Nashville black community and perhaps for a period its most high-profile leader. He was unrelenting in his pursuit of the liberal Democratic agenda of the era in general and the civil rights agenda in particular. As a high-profile African American legislator, he was, perhaps even more than most of his peers, a lightning rod for both criticism and praise, depending upon the observer's point of view. In the 1970s Williams won a significant legal victory that allowed the merging of the University of Tennessee-Nashville with the historically black Tennessee State University (TSU). This expedited the process of integration in the state’s system of higher education. In the late 1980s Williams began to be debilitated by the progressive effects of ALS ("Lou Gehrig's disease") and began to require the services of a chauffeur/attendant. Speculation was rife that he would not seek another Senate term in 1988; however he did so and was easily re-elected. However, this was to prove to be his final term, as he came to realize that he was no longer capable of the physical rigors that Senate service occasionally entailed and did not seek another term in 1992. He died shortly thereafter, in 1994. In honor of his unfailing devotion to the Civil Rights cause, the downtown campus of Tennessee State University (formerly the University of Tennessee at Nashville) has been named for him. Williams' son Avon N. Williams III, was an attorney like his father, but unlike him a Republican. Avon Williams III died suddenly on July 9, 2005. External links References 1921 births 1993 deaths African-American state legislators in Tennessee Johnson C. Smith University alumni Boston University School of Law alumni Tennessee state senators 20th-century American politicians 20th-century African-American politicians