Mariam Williams

Mariam Williams’s passion for learning and sharing Black history and underrepresented stories, interest in the developing field of memory work, and experience as a program/project manager have led her to her current position at CPCRS. Before joining the CPCRS staff, Mariam served for five years as project director of “Chronicling Resistance” at the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries, shepherding the initiative from its first nebulous stages to its research, exhibition, and programmatic conclusion.

Prior to relocating to Philadelphia in 2015, Mariam was program coordinator at the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research. There she created, developed, and supported innovative programs to bridge gaps between academic research and social justice activism. Though Mariam started high school in Louisville, Ky., thinking she would become an architect, she holds an MFA in creative writing, a graduate certificate in public history, and degrees/credentials in psychology, painting, screenwriting, and oral history.

Weitzman School of Design colleagues may be interested in her essays in Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia and Organize Your Own: The Politics and Poetics of Self-Determination Movements, and in her introduction to Chronicling Resistance: The Exhibition.