Hazel Browne Williams

Hazel Browne was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on February 9, 1907.^[1] She was the only child of John and Effie Moten Browne.^[1]

She graduated from Lincoln High School in 1923.^[2] While at Lincoln High, she served as the first woman sponsor major of the school's Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC).^[3]

Williams studied English at the University of Kansas and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society.^[4] She earned her bachelor's degree in 1927, and continued at the university to earn a master's degree in English in 1929.^[1] Her master's thesis was titled "The Difficulty of the King James Version of the Bible for the Modern Reader."^[5] Williams would later go on to earn another master's degree in guidance counseling from Columbia University, where she was elected to the honor society Kappa Delta Pi.^[1][6] She was the first recipient of foreign fellowships awarded by Alpha Kappa Alpha;^[6] she studied for a doctorate in Germany until her work was disrupted by the outbreak of World War II.^[7] Williams received her Ph.D. from New York University in 1953; her doctoral thesis was titled "A Semantic Study of Some Current Pejoratively Regarded Language Symbols Involving Negroes in the United States: An Approach to Intergroup Conflict Through a Study of Language Behavior".^[6]

Early in her career she married Claude Williams, a principal at Leeds Junior High School; he died in 1937.^[1]

Williams began her career teaching at Louisville Municipal College in 1932.^[8] She was an assistant professor of English (later assistant professor of modern languages) who also taught German and established a German Studies department at the college.^[2] She returned to Kansas City to teach in 1942.^[6] In the 1940s to early 1950s she was working as a counselor at the R. T. Coles Vocational and Junior High School, where she took leave from June 1948 until September 1951 to pursue her Ph.D.^[6] She was recognized as the first Black instructor in the Kansas City School District to hold a Ph.D.^[9]

Williams became an exchange teacher through the Fulbright Program in 1956, teaching English at a girls' secondary school in Vienna.^[2][7]

She was hired by the University of Missouri–Kansas City in 1958 as an associate professor of education, becoming a full professor in secondary education two years later.^[2] In this role she was the first African American full-time professor at the university.^[2] She served on the school's faculty for 18 years.^[2] Her research interests included speech patterns of young children and language development; after 1970 most of her research efforts were associated with the project "Black Educators Prior to 1954," highlighting the neglected accomplishments of Black educators.^[5] When she retired in 1976, Williams became the first African American awarded emeritus status by the University of Kansas.^[8] Her career was recognized by the University of Missouri in 1977 with the Thomas Jefferson award.^[5]

Williams died on July 7, 1986, and was buried at Forest Hill Calvary Cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri.^[1]