Today, the Pacific School of Religion (PSR) community joins the GLIDE community as we grieve the death of the Reverend Cecil Williams (September 22, 1929 – April 22, 2024) and commend him to God’s care. Rev. Williams was a transformative leader whose ministry and life have impacted millions in the San Francisco Bay Area and across the world. In his almost 100 years of life he was instrumental in the formation of many PSR students and alumnx over the decades, including PSR professor Rev. Dr. Dorsey Blake, Bishop Karen Oliveto (MDiv ‘83), the first openly lesbian bishop in The United Methodist Church, and current Glide Memorial Church Minister of Celebration, Rev. Marvin K. White (MDiv ’16).
In the Bay Area Reporter, fellow PSR alumnx Rev. Jim Mitulski (MDiv ’90), who worked with Rev. Williams and his wife, the poet and activist, Janice Mirikitani, in the 1980s and ’90s in the movement for LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS liberation, said, “through his work on the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, which he and others at Glide Church helped pioneer in the 1960s, he modeled an intersectional approach to social change and the collaborative approach to community work.”
May he rest in peace.