Walter Williams

American economist, 1936-2020

This year just keeps getting worse. On Wednesday afternoon, word came down the editor chain that Walter Williams died unexpectedly. His column appears nearby, and we suppose it will be the last one unless his editors have a supply in the can. Dr. Williams always did understand supply and demand.

Walter Williams was an economist by trade. Yes, he practiced the dismal science. And some of his writings reflected that. For example, take the column on this page. Is there anything more dismal than failing schools? But somebody has to point out when the system breaks down and fails the young generation. We have our souls to think about.

But more than economics, Dr. Williams often wrote about freedom, liberty, history and the free market. And race. He spent a lot of column inches on race. And unlike so many others in his field, he took a different view about how to deal with such a touchy subject. He not only touched it, he grabbed it, tackled it, and held it aloft. Agree or disagree with his views, he told it with the bark off.

Unlike some commentators with such conservative views, he was able to get his thoughts into the mainstream. His work has appeared in National Review, Economic Inquiry and American Economic Review. And in Newsweek, Reader’s Digest and Georgia Law Review. One of his books, “America: A Minority

Viewpoint,” was even made into a PBS documentary.

Not that his conservative views as an adult had come from a place of privilege. He was born poor in Philadelphia. He was drafted in 1959. And fought against systemic racism in the United States military as a young man.

He said he considered himself a radical in his early years — more aligned with Malcolm X than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — until he began college studies and had some of his thoughts challenged by professors. One was named Dr. Thomas Sowell. The two developed a friendship that would last until, well, Wednesday. See today’s column, in which Dr. Williams mentions Dr. Sowell.

What impresses us about Walter Williams’ writing over the years was his understanding of government and its consequences — many times unintended consequences. Walter Williams often wrote columns based on historic government policy and gauge-able outcomes. And how the best of intentions sometimes leads to the worst of outcomes.

And he backed that up with numbers that he included in his columns, often with links to those numbers, or at least links to policy papers that had them. As a publisher we know likes to say, giving the reader real numbers to back up your point is preferable to being vague and indefinite.

Dead at 83 years old, Walter Williams leaves a hole on this page. And in American politics.