Descending from the Logan slave plantation, Bill’s father’s family fled the racial terror of the South in the Great Migration to Evanston from Greenwood, South Carolina in the early 1900s. During this time, his mother’s family descended from the White slave plantation in Missouri and came to Evanston, via Muscatine Iowa. Bill’s family instilled in him self-discipline, decency, value for education, and spirit of community that permeated throughout his life.

Bill was raised in Evanston’s historic 5th Ward. Growing up, his family was poor in resources, but wealthy in spirit. He worked while attending school and playing sports. He was employed setting pins at a bowling alley and making bumpers for buses at a factory, earning money to help his parents pay the bills. Living in poverty, fed his work ethic and sense of appreciation. Living with racial segregation, cultivated his strong Black identity. Living under racial oppression kindled the spirit of social justice within him.