Barbara Winfield was ecstatic when I presented her a copy of my book, “Daddy: A.C. Williams Jr. and his Teen Town Singers.” At the age of 84, she has trouble climbing the stairs in her home, but her aging body hasn’t affected her memory of Mr. Williams and why the book is so important to her.
Andrew Charles Williams Jr. graduated from Tennessee State University in 1938, taught biology at Manassas High School for eight years, and launched his career in broadcasting at WDIA in 1949.
An affable personality with a penchant for community service and youth development, Mr. Williams was known by his moniker “Moohah,” an Indian name meaning “The Mighty One.” He was the radio station’s first Black fulltime employee who corralled high school students to form The Teen Town Singers.
“He was like a father to me. After my father died, he would always call my mother to check on me,” said Winfield, who was a student at Booker T. Washington High School when she joined Mr. Williams’s famed choral group. Like some of her choral mates from other Black high schools — Carver, Manassas, Hamilton, Douglass, Melrose — she revered the man for his gentility and doting nature.
A retired Memphis City Schools teacher, Winfield is one of 19 Teen Towners featured in the 262-page book depicting Mr. Williams’s love for the youth in his charge and his longevity at WDIA — 34 years — as an announcer and director of community relations.
Published in August 2024 by GrantHouse Publishers in Memphis, the book was the brainchild of Markhum “Mark” L. Stansbury Sr., a Teen Towner himself who finds solace in broadcasting at WDIA for more than 60 years now. A retired university administrator, he wanted Mr. Williams’s legacy in radio, as an educator, and founder of The Teen Town Singers to be preserved for posterity.
Joan E. Patterson, Mr. Williams’s daughter, didn’t want her father’s legacy to go unnoticed either or be consigned to the dust bin of history.
Stansbury and other board members of the WDIA Goodwill Fund, the radio station’s charitable arm, gave me the greenlight to write the book. When I spoke to Patterson, she was flabbergasted and offered to help me cobble together the full story of Mr. Williams, who died Dec. 3, 2004, at the age of 87.
“He was a great male figure for me,” said Stansbury, a BTW alum who was raised by his mother in the Foote Homes housing project and at 378 Hernando Street, just south of downtown Memphis. He’d never met his biological father, so he doted on Mr. Williams.
Carla Thomas, the “Queen of Memphis Soul,” was a Teen Town Singer as well. So was her brother, the late Marvell Thomas. She was 11 years old when she joined the group.
“I begged Dad to let me join,” said Thomas, whose father, the legendary Rufus Thomas, was a disc jockey at WDIA at that time and held sway with Mr. Williams and other legendary jocks.
Teen Towners had to be in ninth grade to join the group, but Thomas was different. She could sing and write songs. A song she’d written at Hamilton High School when she was 17, “Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes),” catapulted her to stardom after enrolling at Tennessee State University.
Other Teen Towners were also successful as singers, songwriters, entertainers, entrepreneurs, educators, administrators, athletes and more — just what Mr. Williams had intended when he awarded them scholarships to attend college. Overall, the book is a snapshot of his life and legacy and the love he’d shown inner-city youth looking to belong to something bigger than themselves.
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