Kenny J. Williams (1927–2003) was an African American scholar and author, and an English professor at Duke University.
Williams was born in Kentucky, (hence the name "Kenny") and received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1959. She was from 1977 until her death, a professor in Duke University's Department of English. Her father was Joseph Harrison Jackson, President of the National Baptist Convention from 1941 to 1990.
In 1986, she received the MidAmerica Award from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature for distinguished contributions to the study of same. Williams was appointed in 1991 to the National Council on the Humanities by President George H. W. Bush.
She was member of the Executive Board of the American Literature Association, and also served on the Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Published works
As author
- Chicago's Public Wits: A Chapter in the American Comic Spirit (1983 Louisiana State University Press) ISBN 0-8071-1043-4
- A Storyteller and a City: Sherwood Anderson's Chicago(1988 Northern IL University Press) ISBN 0-87580-135-8
- Prairie voices: a literary history of Chicago from the frontier to 1893 (1980 Townsend Press), ISBN 0-935990-00-3
- They also spoke: an essay on Negro literature in America, 1787–1930 (1970 Townsend Press)
As illustrator
- Essays – Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose and Poetry, Ann Plato (author) (1988 Oxford University Press) ISBN 0-19-505247-1