Pastor Audri Scott Williams

Pastor Audri Scott Williams sat down with me for Heroes I Know.

Born Montclair, New Jersey. Three weeks. Then Fayetteville, North Carolina. Father's people. Eight generations. His grandfather was one of the founding presidents of Fayetteville State. Mother from Hampton, Virginia. Professor. Drama. You were going to college. The only question was which one.

Dad was an entrepreneur. His seafood grill sat in the Green Book for seven years. Safe places when the South was not safe. The house took people in. Gerald came for a weekend. Left three years later. You had to jump over feet to get to your bedroom.

She and her brother were the first African-American students to integrate a white elementary school. Picket lines. Mothers with signs. Shock at first. Then it settled. What matters to her is building community. Look at the scabs. Lift them with love. Invite everybody in.

After the civil rights years her parents were exhausted. They moved to St. Croix. Mom walked onto private beaches. Natalie. She said it was her beach. Latter years she had Alzheimer's. They took her around the world for four years. She still stole the show.

Audri was the quiet one. The reader. Summers at Hampton Institute she did underwater ballet. She wanted to swim the English Channel by sixteen. First African-American woman. Life went another way. She is over it now.

She was nine when Fayetteville State marched after Birmingham. Fort Bragg soldiers came. They could draw pay and not walk into Sears. They left their valuables in the backyard. Person Street to the market house. An ancestor had been sold there. Dogs. Hoses. Snakes. Dad bailed people out. Frog legs from the cafe when the food ran out. A black cat with green eyes walked in when they left and was gone when they came back. That night is in her book. Embers of Glory.

She pastors a Spiritual Enrichment Center. Karen is her partner. Family first. Let's do good. Let's love. That is why we hit record. Get the story on tape before we are too old or too sick to tell it.