Two beacons in the quest for racial equality

Two iconic contributors to African-American advancement are being memorialized Saturday in Washington, and within hours of each other. The juxtaposition of their memorial services only magnifies the enormity of the nation’s loss.

The life of Eddie Williams journalist, State Department official, veteran Capitol Hill staffer, university vice president, longtime president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies think tank - will be celebrated at 11 a.m. at the Howard University Law Center’s Dunbarton Chapel on Van Ness Street NW.

At 1:30 p.m., about a mile west of the Howard Law School, family and friends will gather at the Quaker Meeting House and Arts Center at Sidwell Friends School on Wisconsin Avenue to bid farewell to Roger Wilkins, historian, professor, journalist, top Justice Department official.

The labels affixed to their names reveal something about what Williams and Wilkins did during their 84 and 85 years, respectively.

Their bios, however, do not do them justice.

Simply stated, in an America desperately searching for direction in the quest for racial equality, Williams and Wilkins were beacons leading the way.

Neither made the list of alltime-great African-American orators. You won’t find them chronicled in the Who’s Who of Black Celebrityhood. Williams and Wilkins weren’t show horses flittering between cocktail parties and restaurant tables ostentatiously talking the talk.

They were institution builders who devoted themselves to bringing about black political and social empowerment.

Wilkins fulfilled his task in different roles.

He was on the ground in Watts when the ashes were still smoldering. But Wilkins, who was head of the Community Relations Service and was the Justice Department’s first black assistant attorney general, did more than tackle crises and put out fires.

Out of public view, Wilkins used his deep knowledge of government and American culture to build capacity in damaged communities. He found and nurtured leaders where few were recognized before.

Encountering a Washington power structure ruled by an old boys’ network, Wilkins set out to create what he dubbed a “new boys’ network” quietly linking a small group of AfricanAmerican trailblazers scattered throughout the upper reaches of the federal government.

It is a network that has endured through both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Then there were his other roles: Post editorial writer, New York Times columnist, author, TV and radio talking head. See Wilkins at the keyboard, in the studios: agitating, propounding ideas and laying down strategy, all with the aim of educating and advancing the cause.

Along the way, he became part of The Post’s Watergate coverage that won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service; he later added a 20-year college professorship. He walked the lonely trail, and often had the searing experience, of being an African-American “first” in several fields.

It was a pleasure hearing him hold forth during an annual, politically incorrect stag picnic that my club, “The DePriest Fifteen,” hosted at my home.

Raconteur par excellence, Wilkins was the only man I know who could provoke my demure wife, Gwen, to resort to profanity.

As Roger Wilkins was navigating the white power structure, in another part of town, Eddie Williams was also making a huge difference in black lives.

What is an African-American think tank? To black elected officials stretching as far as the eye can see, and to those seeking knowledge about the political system, governance and the African-American experience, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies is a mecca: the go-to place for newcomers to the political arena to learn the ropes; the place to gain knowledge and practical education for those who want to stay there.

The Joint Center is where African-American activists marshal the data, as the Joint Center’s current president, Spencer Overton, said, to go “from being outsiders to insiders.”

Williams took research and policy work to places never visited before.

In the ‘70s, I found myself in an unincorporated township outside Charleston, South Carolina; in an office building in Riviera Beach, Florida; in a session with officials in Inkster, Michigan (home town of the Marvelettes); and in a few other communities. My then-boss and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program chief, Connie Newman, had assigned me to work on a Joint Center/White House-created “Small Town Task Force” - a Williams inspiration designed to identify, at a micro level, issues confronting communities with newly elected African-American officials.

We found several actionable items, but that’s not the point.

Williams ferreted out practical issues within the political system inherited by black elected officials and used the Joint Center to address the problems we uncovered.

That was his genius.