Meet Ted Williams III: 2024 Chicago Defender Men of Excellence Honoree

As an educator, performance artist, playwright, actor and public servant, Ted Williams III is truly a hyphenate. This man of many talents, who has a profound commitment to education, community service and the arts, has been selected as a 2024 Men of Excellence honoree.& “I’m just honored to be considered among the real movers, shakers, influencers, and community servants who represent the group of men who are being honored this year and have been honored previously,” Williams said.& If there is a mantra or guiding principle that undergirds Williams’s multifaceted career, it’s a quote by a distinguished scholar. “I think about Dr. Cornel West and his quote, where he says that “justice is what love looks like in public,” Williams told the Chicago Defender.& “So, for me, that sense of love and concern that exists in my heart has to manifest itself in the struggle for justice, and it has to manifest itself in educating and inspiring people.” His tools of choice? The media arts and education.& Educating and Inspiring: An Important Early Lesson Presently, Williams is the Chairman of the Social Sciences Department at Kennedy-King College, a role that allows him to shape the minds of future leaders.& His...