Biography
Judith Williams was a music therapist and Waukesha Catholic Worker organizer. Jailed in 1998 following the School of the Americas protest at Fort Benning.
Death-date and photo sources
- Marquette University, Waukesha Catholic Worker Records — identifies Williams as the house’s founder and records her sudden death in 2020.
- Laura DeNooyer, “Using Stories as Gateways, Part 2” — a longtime neighbor reports that Williams died in January 2020 and identifies this spring 2019 photograph of Williams at home. Photograph courtesy of Nancy Anderson; cropped to the central subject without AI editing.
Birth-year source
- SOA Watch prisoners-of-conscience chronology — identifies Judith Williams as 58 among the November 1997 Fort Benning defendants, supporting 1939 as her birth year.
The April 27, 1998 petition by clemency counsel Debra K. Hannula places this defendant among the January 1998 Fort Benning illegal-re-entry convictions before Judge Elliott, carrying six months and a $3,000 fine. Its January 22 trial/sentencing account differs by one day from an earlier January 21 news report, so the new sentencing field uses month precision rather than choosing an unresolved day. The individual biography confirms March 23, 1998 prison entry. The biography describes her music-therapy practice and Catholic Worker work supporting Central American patients visiting Wisconsin for surgery. These records concern a request for clemency; they do not establish that a pardon or commutation was granted.
Clinton Presidential Library, individual biography PDF page 48; petition pages 27–32.
