Speaking
RJ Williams speaks on lineage documentation, the evidentiary case for reparations, and the policy designs that are actually moving right now. Audiences leave with sources, not slogans.
Keynote, workshop, panel, or a full teaching session where the room learns to search its own families in the federal archive before the hour is up.
Video slot, ready and waiting
Send a speaking reel or a YouTube link and this becomes the reel. A still photo works too.
Formats
Thirty to sixty minutes. One argument, carried end to end, built for a mixed audience that has heard the topic argued badly before.
Ninety minutes to a half day, hands on. Attendees search the free federal portals live and leave with their own family in front of them.
For councils, commissions and staff. What has been enacted, what only looks enacted, what the litigation says, and what that means for your jurisdiction.
As a panelist or moderator, including panels where the other chairs disagree. Especially those.
Signature talks
Each of these can be delivered as a keynote or expanded into a workshop. All are built from primary sources and updated when the underlying data changes.
Talk one
Why the idea that Black American history is untraceable past 1870 is a myth, and what is actually sitting in the Freedmen’s Bureau files, the bank registers, the labor contracts and the claims commission files. Ends with the audience running a live search.
Best for: churches, family reunions, campuses, libraries, genealogy societies
Talk two
Why the reparations debate stalls on eligibility and never reaches form, funding or legal exposure. Walks the audience through all five questions using Evanston, California and the Civil Liberties Act as worked examples.
Best for: conferences, civic organizations, policy audiences, graduate programs
Talk three
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988, Rosewood in 1994, and the institutional programs at Virginia Theological Seminary and Georgetown. What each one got right, what each one got wrong, and what a national program would have to borrow from them.
Best for: mixed and skeptical audiences, interfaith settings, corporate programming
Talk four
Twentieth century harm as federal administration rather than private prejudice. HOLC grading, the GI Bill’s local delivery, and the housing gap that followed. Can be localized to the host city’s own security map.
Best for: municipal bodies, housing organizations, planning and urbanism audiences
Talk five
The four serious objections stated at full strength, the polling on what Americans actually believe, and how to hold a position without overstating a number. Uncomfortable on purpose, and the one organizers ask for twice.
Best for: advocacy training, debate and forensics programs, leadership retreats
Custom
If your audience has a specific angle, a specific city, or a specific decision in front of it, say so on the booking form. A talk built around a live local question lands harder than a general one.
Start the conversation
For organizers
Booking
Tell us the date, the room and what you need the audience to walk out believing. We will come back with a format recommendation and terms.
Fees vary by format, travel and organization type. Community, campus and faith organizations should ask, because the answer is often different from the corporate one.
