The Rev. Cecil Williams; at 94

SAN FRANCISCO — The Rev. Cecil Williams, who with his late wife turned Glide Church in San Francisco into a world-renowned haven for people suffering from poverty and homelessness and living on the margins, has died. He was 94.

Rev. Williams and his wife, Janice Marikitami, who died in 2021, appeared in Will Smith’s film “The Pursuit of Happyness,” which was based on the life of a homeless father and son who once found help at Glide Memorial Church. Rev. Williams died Monday at his home in San Francisco, Glide said in a statement. A cause of death was not given.

An advocate for civil rights and social justice, Rev. Williams’s work drew the attention of celebrities, politicians, and businessmen, including Warren Buffet, who for years helped Rev. Williams raise money for the church through an auction for a private lunch with the hedge fund manager.

Maya Angelou, Isabel Allende, Bono, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill Clinton were among the celebrities who once attended services at Glide. Rev. Williams’s focus always remained on helping the poor.

“I would have to be with people I understand, and it’s the poor,” Rev. Williams told the San Francisco Chronicle in a 2013 interview. “I’m with them wherever they are.”

Born and raised in the segregated West Texas town of San Angelo, Rev. Williams moved to San Francisco in 1963 to become the pastor at what was then called Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, a house of worship with dwindling parishioners in the heart of the city’s largely impoverished Tenderloin district.