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Eraserless pencils were strewn across James Willie’s childhood home. His father’s writing process demanded it. All of his books were written with a pencil in hand on yellow paper.

“He would burn through erasers,” James Willie said about his father.

James’ father, Charles “Chuck” Willie, was Syracuse University’s first Black academic administrator and first Black tenured professor. He joined SU in 1950 as a teaching assistant. In 1957, Willie received his Ph.D. from SU, and in 1967, he became the chair of the university’s sociology department. In 1972, he became vice president for student affairs.

Charles Willie died on Jan. 11 at the age of 94.

John Palmer served as the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs’s dean from 1988 until 2003. While the two didn’t work together while Charles Willie was at SU, Willie did serve on the school’s advisory board while Palmer was its dean.

Palmer said Charles Willie was a wonderful presence.

“(He was) very thoughtful and deeply committed to the school and university with his concerns as an advisory board member,” Palmer said. “(He had) a very strong moral voice.”

Palmer said Charles Willie was deeply attuned to the concerns of students and how their experience at SU could be improved. On the advisory board, Willie was an advocate for students, Palmer said.

Charles Willie had issues with the use of the “Saltine Warrior” as a symbol for the university. According to a clipping from The Syracuse Post-Standard in SU’s archives, Willie wrote letters in 1972 to school departments and student organizations alike, saying he was disturbed by the symbol’s use, though he didn’t consult with the Onondaga Nation before sending the letters. The mascot would be discontinued six years later.

Beyond letters, James Willie said his father was always writing. He wrote 35 books and over 100 articles, he said.

“If you ever met him and spent time with him, you didn’t forget him. His presence was very strong in a very positive way,” Palmer said.

Louis Kriesberg, a professor emeritus in the university’s sociology department, came to Syracuse in 1962. He said by the time he had arrived, his “energetic” colleague Charles Willie was working in the sociology department.

He called Charles a “great collaborator.”

Kriesberg said the sociology department at the time was tight-knit, and while the two never worked on projects together, they shared notes and critiqued one another’s work.

“He was very set in terms of what his principles were,” he said, “but he was always willing to compromise when it came to, ‘What do you have to do to make change?’”

Both James Willie and Kriesberg detailed Charles Willie’s religious work in the Episcopal Church.

Charles Willie delivered a sermon at the ordination of the “Philadelphia 11.” At the 1974 service, 11 women became the first female priests in the Episcopal Church. Following the ceremony, the church deemed that they were “irregularly” ordained, The Huffington Post reported in its 40-year retrospective of the event.

“This shouldn’t be seen as an act of arrogant disobedience, but an act of tender defiance,” Willie said during the sermon, WHYY-FM reported in 2014. At the time, Willie was the vice president of the House of Deputies, a governing body in the Episcopal Church.

He was already the first Black vice president of the Episcopal Church of the United States, James Willie said, and was lined up to be the first Black president.

But after the Church nullified the priesthood of the 11 women, Charles Willie stepped down, Kriesberg said.

“He resigned in protest of what he considered a sin,” Kriesberg said.

Megan Thompson | Design Editor

Later, Kriesberg said, the church would accept women as ministers. He said Charles Willie was applauded and awarded by the Episcopal Church following the reversal.

James Willie said his father was a “natural bridge” for people and worked to reach out and connect different groups toward a common goal.

On SU’s campus, Willie worked to expand the university’s outreach into the greater Syracuse community. James Willie said his father worked to allow children from Syracuse to use the university’s gyms during times SU students were not using them, such as on Sunday mornings.

As a sociologist, Willie studied and aided in the Black student experience at SU. According to a Post-Standard article in SU’s archives, Willie said some predominantly white colleges in upstate New York that only recruit a “token” amount of Black students do not create an adequate Black community on campus.

James Willie said his father was always very involved with his students, both advocating for them and working with them to find out what they need to do to accomplish their goals.

His father told him that many Black students at SU wanted him as their adviser as a Black professor. He didn’t want to turn students down.

“He would often have a graduate student or a newly minted Ph.D. work with him … and they would get published along with him,” James Willie said.

In 2017, SU Chancellor Kent Syverud presented Charles Willie with the Chancellor’s Citation Lifetime Achievement Award.

“Throughout his career, he leveraged the power of social research to advance the cause of justice,” Syverud wrote in a press release.

Gretchen Ritter, SU’s vice chancellor, provost and chief academic officer, said Charles Willie was a scholar of desegregation, race relations and higher education in SU’s Feb. 24 University Senate meeting.

Charles Willie also collaborated with Martin Luther King Jr. — the two became friends at Morehouse College, where they both graduated.

David Barbier Jr., a junior at SU, said in the 2022 MLK Jr. Day celebration that Charles Willie invited King to speak at SU multiple times, leading to King speaking at SU in 1961 and 1965. Palmer said Charles Willie reminded him of King.

Charles Willie’s whole career was not at SU — he left the university to join the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1974.

The school’s current dean, Bridget Long, said in a release she had admiration for Charles Willie, and that she greatly benefited from his support and encouragement when she was a young faculty member.

“He truly was a bright and shining light for all he encountered — a trailblazing scholar adept at using his research for the benefit of countless schoolchildren, and a deeply kind person who helped to develop generations of students after him,” she said.

Published on March 10, 2022 at 1:24 am

Contact Kyle: [email protected] | @Kyle_Chouinard