Cecil Williams, who was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina, photographed his first wedding at 11 years old. From then, he began a career in photography, which started as a simple way to make money, and would quickly morph into a tool to document American history. By the time he was 14, Cecil was freelancing for JET magazine. When the magazine became aware of the Civil Rights movement growing in Orangeburg, they needed an onsite correspondent for constant updates.

Williams went on to photograph significant desegregation efforts in South Carolina . Some of his most notable pictures are from the Briggs v. Elliott case in Summerton, South Carolina. It was the first of five desegregation cases that eventually pushed to integrate public schools in the United States, as all five cases would later on be combined into Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that declared “separate but equal” public schools for whites and blacks was unconstitutional.