Johnson County Community College
Press Release

8/29/05
Story by Peggy Graham

Carmaletta Williams Receives First JCCC Diversity Award

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – Johnson County Community College awarded its first-ever Diversity Award to Carmaletta Williams, JCCC English professor, for her leadership in diversity efforts.

Williams, Grandview, Mo., who has a doctorate in English from the University of Kansas, has served JCCC, the state of Kansas, Ghana and South Africa by promoting awareness of black literature, historical figures and current events.

Since 1993, Williams has made more than 250 presentations before academic, professional and community groups. Many of the presentations have been under the auspices of the Kansas Humanities Council including a first-person characterization of noted black writer, folklorist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston and versions of Free Did Not Mean Welcome: African American Migration to Kansas. 

She has been the recipient of more than 20 awards and honors including the Who’s Who Among American College Professors, 2004, 2005; Minority Opportunity Fellowship Grant, KU, 1999, 2000, 2001; KU Black Faculty and Staff Council’s Student Achievement Award, 1999, 2000, 2001; KU Black Faculty and Staff Council’s Alumni Award, 2000; Fulbright-Hays Fellowship for Study in Ghana, 1997; and the 1997 Kansas Professor of the Year Award, awarded by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Council for Advancement and Support of Education. She was a participant in the National Endowment for the Humanities summer institute, African American Struggles for Freedom 1866-1965 at Harvard University in 2002. 

A prolific writer, Williams has published academic journal articles, encyclopedia entries and study guides for high school teachers, many on the topics of Langston Hughes, an early 20th century black poet and writer, and the Harlem Renaissance. She has created three videos – Sankofa: My Journey Home, a profile of Ghana; Kente, Libation and the High Priest, an interview between Williams and Virginia Freeman, the past president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History; and A Conversation with Zora Neale Hurston, an interview between Williams in character as Hurston with Virginia Freeman. Williams has also produced several fiction books, including a children's book and two novel manuscripts under consideration for publication. 

Williams served as a consultant to the government of Guinea, West Africa, to establish an exchange between L’Ecole Nacionale de Postes et Telecommunications and JCCC, the Billionaire Entertainment Group to interview South Africans about their lives during and after the fall of apartheid for a documentary film, to several major publishers, including Prentice-Hall on black history and to the National Poetry Project on Langston Hughes at KU. 

Williams was selected for the JCCC Diversity Award by a committee that included faculty, staff, students and a representative from the President’s Office.