Portsmouth, Virginia / A life in two hands
Her racket was her activism when she was in her youth. Marcus Bell, her son
She had a powerful serve and a strong backhand until the last set.
Her family wrote that.
This page is the argument that the set never ended.
The headline the press gave her
That was how the New Journal and Guide, a Hampton Roads newspaper since 1900, remembered her. Not the titles, not the housing, not the degrees. The thing everyone who met her came away with. Every photograph in her family's box has it.
The scoreboard
national titles at one tournament, in one year45th ATA Nationals, Hampton Institute, 1961
years old when she won all threeSame year Arthur Ashe took the men's singles
years the Ohio Tennis Classic had run before an African-American player won a titleShe was the first
consecutive Virginia Interscholastic Association state singles championshipsPlus three straight ATA interscholastic titles
homes built for low-income families at Park PlaceFoundation she founded and first led
secured for housing in BrambletonAfter $60,000 from the Ford Foundation for Park Place
churches receiving the newspaper she publishedThe Spiritual Times
years one woman she mentored stayed out of the criminal justice systemAnd counting, at the time of writing
One year
1961
That year there was no African-American woman in the country playing better.
At sixteen, at the 45th ATA Nationals at Hampton Institute, Carolyn Williams took the Women's Singles, the Women's Doubles with Marvalene Faggett, and the girls 16–18 Junior Singles. Her family's record says she was the first woman to hold all three.
Arthur Ashe Jr. won the Men's Singles at the same tournament, and the doubles with Ronald Charity. She and Ashe trained in the same camp. Through the 1960s she competed nationally, often as the only African-American in the draw.
The Olympian Sports Club named her Athlete of the Year. I.C. Norcom High School made her Homecoming Queen. Her brother LaMar was her doubles partner for many of the state titles.
He became a household name.
She became a Reverend.
The rally
Daughter of Sandy and Beatrice Williams. Seventh of December.
With her brother LaMar, who would become her doubles partner.
Santa is already on the shelf behind the cake.
Women's Doubles at the 43rd ATA Nationals at Hampton Institute, partnered with Bessie Stockard. She was fourteen.
Singles, doubles and juniors in a single tournament. Athlete of the Year. Homecoming Queen.
Class of '62, Portsmouth. Three straight state singles championships behind her.
Her family's record holds that she was among the first African-American women to play the US Open. And she became the first African-American to win any title in the Ohio Tennis Classic's 71-year history.
Bachelor of Social Work and Sociology, Wilberforce, Ohio, where she joined Alpha Kappa Alpha. The first of four qualifications.
Guidance counsellor in Portsmouth Public Schools. Case manager at the Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority. A Master of Science in Educational Guidance from Virginia State, and a postgraduate certification in secondary school guidance.
She founded it and served as its first president, secured $60,000 from the Ford Foundation, and built 37 units of low-income housing. Then led the effort that raised over $2 million for Brambleton.
Assistant Dean for Student Affairs and Director of Community Relations at Old Dominion University. Then Associate Vice President for Advancement at Norfolk State, where she ran a HUD-funded programme bringing mentoring and community projects into low-income housing, working with former president Dr. Harrison B. Wilson and her mentor Mal Nicholson.
Master of Divinity, Virginia Union University. Ordained by Dr. Robert Barnes, and associate pastor at Canaan Baptist Church, Suffolk.
She ministered to incarcerated people, and campaigned through the NAACP and the Urban League on mass incarceration, HIV/AIDS, urban farming, women's health and after-school programmes for young people.
By the Urban League of Hampton Roads, at its annual awards.
The Spiritual Times, distributed to more than 100 churches. That's Pretty, a biography of Rev. A.R. Walker. And, with her son, the Amazon number one Bellringer Branding Bible. Dr. Monica Sharma wrote about her in Radical Transformational Leadership.
She married Harvey Bell Jr., and they both worked at Old Dominion. Her son Marcus. Her brother LaMar, who partnered her for many of the state doubles titles.
Magazines, articles, newspapers, awards, and letters to her from the family of Martin Luther King Jr. And the photographs on this page.
Around 1968
A beach, a puppy. The national titles behind her and none of the rest of it yet. It is easy to remember a Reverend as someone who was always a Reverend. She was twenty-three here.
What she said
She never gave up on me. She said, don't ever let your past dictate your future.
Ann FieldsMentee. Twelve years out of the criminal justice system since.
Use your influence, knowledge and wisdom to help others.
How she livedThe rule she gave everyone else.
What people say
She didn't brag about her accomplishments but she was an angel walking among us.
Marcus BellHer son
The effect that Carolyn had on people was amazing. Sensitivity and caring was who she was.
LaMar WilliamsHer brother
She tirelessly and aggressively pushed the boundaries for social justice.
Maggi Curry-WilliamsHer best friend
She stands for other people's greatness.
The Carolyn Bell Foundation
A radiating smile.
The New Journal and GuideHeadline, 2018
The box
Everyone who met her came away with something. Two minutes, and it stops being only yours.
The score
This page counts up. Everything below is still happening. That was her whole method: build things that keep going on their own.
The banner she worked under her whole life, and the one her family chose for the foundation set up in her name.
In production. Her record is being assembled from the people who played against her and worked beside her, while they are here to tell it.
Thirty-seven families' worth of front doors that exist because she went and got the money.
She was writing one, about activism, for children. It is the one thing on this page that nobody has finished.
Letters, clippings and awards among her papers, including correspondence from the King family. The photographs are here. The papers are next.
Add to the record
Anything at all. A sentence is enough. Everything sent here is read by her family, published on this page with your name, and given to the researchers working on her story.
Stuck? Pick one and start there.
It's with her family. If you left an email, someone will write back.