Rev. Peter Williams, Jr.

Peter Williams Jr.
Born	1786 New Brunswick, New Jersey
Died	1840 (aged 54)
Nationality	American
Alma mater	African Free School
Occupation	Priest

Peter Williams Jr. (1786–1840) was an African-American Episcopal priest, the second ordained in the United States, and an abolitionist in New York City. He supported free black emigration to Haiti, the black republic that had achieved independence in 1804. Later in life he strongly opposed the American Colonization Society's efforts to relocate free blacks to a colony in Africa.

In 1808 he organized St. Philip's African Church in lower Manhattan, the second black Episcopal church in the United States. In 1827 he was a co-founder of Freedom's Journal, the first African-American owned and operated newspaper in the United States. In 1833 he founded the Phoenix Society, a mutual aid society for African Americans; that year he was also elected to the executive board of the interracial American Anti-Slavery Society.

Williams was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the son of Peter Williams, a Revolutionary War veteran, and his wife, an indentured servant from St. Kitts. After his family moved to New York City, Williams attended the African Free School, founded by the New York Manumission Society. He was also taught privately by Rev. Thomas Lyell, a prominent Episcopal priest.

In 1796, his father was among the organizers of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AME Zion) in New York. It developed as an independent black denomination, the second in the United States after the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), founded in Philadelphia. After the American Civil War, the AME Zion Church sent missionaries to the South and planted many congregations there.

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