Farewell to Hardy Williams begins

Hardy Williams' friends, family and disciples cheered, laughed and sang him out of this world tonight, in the start of a two-day farewell for the man called the father of black independent politics in his city.

Tears were the exception at Bible Way Baptist Church in West Philadelphia tonight, where the city's leading politicians sketched a man born to lead and determined to change the mind-set of a community once content to let their leaders be chosen by others.

"I wouldn't know where the U.S. Congress was if it wasn't for Hardy Williams," said U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, who skipped out on an address by President Obama for the man who, he said, paved the way for the first African-American president. Fattah is one of the scores of the city's leaders who trace their roots to Williams' movement of the late 1960s that reached a seminal moment in 1971 with his candidacy for mayor. "Before Hardy, every single person who represented our community was picked by people from another community."

And as they praised him, they didn't hold back, as he surely wouldn't have. Because, State Rep. Dwight Evans said, the man was crazy.

"We would say, 'What is that Crazy Hardy up to?' " Evans said. That was because Williams was always a step ahead, with something so bold, so different that no one else had even considered it. "He would do things that nobody understood."

His son-in-law, Common Pleas Judge Gregory Smith, said he was an expert at charming his girlfriends' parents, but was dumbfounded when his father-in-law to be introduced himself as: "Superman Jack, Freedom Fighter."

And it was the spirit of Superman Jack - Williams' alter-ego - that filled the church, some even joking that their hero might still jump up to scold them from the casket. The tall, dashing, articulate intellectual and star athlete, who followed a pioneering basketball career at Penn State University by earning his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, could have cut a path of wealth and ease in the legal profession.

Instead, he always chose the fight, always agitating, against racism against or by his own people, against the status quo. Bossing, ranting, philosophizing.

In the end, Evans said, there was one message: "We, as elected officials, could not be the same as those whom we replaced."

Williams served in both houses of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, was best remembered for the legacy in the West Philadelphia neighborhoods where he engendered an independent black political movement that gave courage to three generations of activists. He didn't win the 1971 mayoral election, but girded others, from Fattah to the city's first African-American mayor, W. Wilson Goode, to Mayor Nutter.

Williams died Jan. 7 at the age of 78 after a long battle with dementia. A viewing and funeral will be held tomorrow at Sharon Baptist Church, 3955 Conshohocken Ave. The viewing is set to begin at 8 a.m. and the service follows at 10. Interment is private.

Mayor Nutter said the single name "Hardy" was the first and most important political figure he recognized in West Philadelphia. There were the campaign slogans that still resonates: "Power to the People," and "Hardy Williams: Because he takes the weight."

An estimated 650 people filled the church and church basement, and more than 50 of his fraternity brothers from Omega Psi Phi serenaded Williams as he lay in the casket, humming in reverence and farewell as they filed, two-by-two, out of the church.

"Good night, my brother," said Wanda Bailey Green, Williams' sister-in-law. "Power to the people: It's the people's power."

Scott Hendler keeps a photo of Williams on his desk at his law office in Austin, Texas, because growing up in West Philly as a young volunteer in Hardy's campaign, he learned that a day out in the neighborhood was: "An organized assault on complacency, on the false belief that a single vote didn't count."

Williams, Hendler reasoned, was probably taking on whatever machine exists in heaven.

"Then," Hendler said, "God will truly have his hands full."