Williams Prof. Druggist
Known Name(s)
Williams Prof. Druggist
Address
414 N. 3rd St. Richmond, VA
Establishment Type(s)
Drug Store
Physical Status
Extant
Description
Williams is a two-story, two-bay, brick rowhouse. The brick is laid in seven-course American bond with a brick rowlock course at the cornice level. The first level has large showroom windows flanking a center entry door. Another door on the north/right side of the building provides access to the upper levels. The upper window has two, six-over-six segmentally arched windows; these windows were previously one-over-one. A narrow horizontal panel, probably for signage, extends between the upper windows.
Detailed History
Established in 1938 and co-owned by Dr. William McKinley Williams (1901-2004) and Stanley P. Williams (1898-1977), Williams Professional Pharmacy operated at 414 N. 3rd Street in Richmond’s Jackson War neighborhood until it closed in 1976. Despite the long tenure, the Williamses promoted their pharmacy only in the 1938 edition of The Negro Motorist Green Book.
Stanley P. Williams grew up on Leigh Street near Virginia Union University. He worked as a “wagon boy” at a local grocery store before serving in the celebrated 325th Field Signal Battalion in World War I. He may have been living in New Jersey at the time of his enlistment.
After the war, Williams earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina (1924) and returned to Richmond where he was certified as an assistant pharmacist by the state pharmacy board in 1927. Williams married Annie Matney in 1933 and may have worked at another druggist before opening Williams Professional Pharmacy in 1937 or 1938.
During World War II, Williams worked for the United States Postal Service in addition to his pharmacy work and served on the Richmond War Price and Rationing Board to help ration gasoline, food, tires, fuel oil, stoves, and shoes in Black neighborhoods. As most druggists of the time, the Williamses served as a clearinghouse for ticket sales for the Mosque theater. In 1953, Richmond police arrested Stanley Williams for “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” by allowing a boy to make pharmacy deliveries on an unlicensed bicycle.
Williams died in 1977. He and Annie Williams had no children.
Dr. William McKinley Williams was born in Norfolk and graduated from Virginia Union University in 1920. He later attended Howard University where he earned a Doctor of Pharmacy degree in 1933 and subsequently obtained a license to practice in Virginia in 1934.
Dr. Williams married Gullnare Hill in 1944. Both Williams families lived in Richmond’s north side.
At the time of Dr. Williams’ death in 2004 he was the oldest surviving alumnus of Virginia Union University.
History and newspaper add courtesy of Christopher Graham.
