Cecil Williams is well-known as a chronicler of the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina. The photojournalist was born and raised in the town of Orangeburg where he still resides, as does the museum which he founded. The South Carolina Civil Rights Museum is home to hundreds of photographs Williams captured that bore witness to the realities of striving for racial equality.
In 2024, Williams joined University of South Carolina history professor Bobby Donaldson at StoryCorps to share the origin story of his love of photography, and the moment it evolved from a hobby into a passionate, lifelong career.
TRANSCRIPT:
Donaldson: For over seven decades, you have been working as a photographer, working to document the movement and so much else about African American life and experience. How did it all begin? How did you get started?
Williams: The photographer in my home, in my household as a youth growing up, was my brother. He was five years older, and he had the camera in the family. He was the guardian of the camera. And it was a Kodak Baby Brownie Special. It cost $2.25 from Sears Roebuck. That was something that was explained to me as he was giving it to me by my mother, because she had bought the camera, mail order. And I had earlier, than receiving the camera, began to sketch and draw. But my drawings were kind of crude, and I never liked them. And so, when I got that camera, it opened a new door of opportunity because I was able to, you might say, satisfy that inner urge to create and to capture things. And the camera answered that. During those days, when you took the photograph, that was just the beginning. There was another journey ahead of you because you had to put film in the camera. And then after you put the film in the camera and take the photographs, then you would have to get them developed and printed. So that was another part of it. And then when we would take the bus to downtown Orangeburg from our home on Quick Street, and downtown was about three miles away, we would take them by the drugstore, the film, to be developed. And then, of course, I would see what I have done. But it fascinated me, the feel of photography and the fact that you could freeze a moment in time, I guess, is what kind of drew me into it. And I thought of the camera as being, like a magic box. And so pretty much, that's when it all started for me as a photographer. And I owe my brother, of course, the credit for that. And also, my mother, because they also, my mother and father also bought the film for me to use. And of course, that was very important, and then pay for developing. So, all that cost money.
Donaldson: So, in some respects, you took what was a toy for some people, a little hobby...you made it a tool, and then you did something else. You made it a career. What you've told me before, "a hustle."
Williams: Yes.
Donaldson: What sparked that transition, that this is not just a gadget, that you were sort of playing around with in the neighborhood. This became your career.
Williams: Well, I kind of learned, the craft of photography and how to take better pictures by really being a pest around the house. I would take my parents and the other members of the household getting dressed and not being prepared as they wanted to be. And so, I would give them at very unposed moments, which they dreaded. So, they would often say, “Here comes the camera!” you know. It became a career at about 12, 13 years old when I did my first wedding for $35. $35 in today's money would maybe be about $100 or $150, I guess. That was the launching. That point, if I could trace it back, would be when I began to commercialize what was a hobby into a profession.
