His life
Beginnings
William H. Harris Jr. was born in 1918 in Petersburg, Virginia, the first of seven children born to Mabel and William Sr. To family and close friends he was known as Hodges.
His early life in Petersburg, his college years, his military service, and 40 years in the New York City school system are the story this site exists to tell.
Service
Before the classroom there was the Navy. He served with the Seabees during World War II, the construction battalions who built airstrips, roads and hospitals wherever the fleet went — a rate that rewarded discipline, planning and getting things finished.
He carried that bearing for the rest of his life. Colleagues would later describe the same qualities on a school hallway: unbounding energy, courageous fortitude, and standards that did not move.
The school
He led Linden Junior High School 192 in Saint Albans, Queens — District 29 — through some of the most contested years in New York City education. The Long Island Press ran the headline “Tough Training For a Tough Job.”
Over four decades in the NYC school system, he became a personal model of commitment to excellence in learning and living for the Hollis and Saint Albans communities.
The community
The Men's Club of the Hollis Presbyterian Church honored him in 1975 for helping build the educational and cultural life of the Southeast Queens community. In 1988, the Friends of Community Control gathered at Whitman Hall, Brooklyn College, to recognize his leadership in the struggle for quality education and self-determination in the public schools.
He served as a deacon of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, recognized by its Boards of Deacons, Deaconesses and Trustees for outstanding leadership and Christian service.
Family
At home he was a husband, a father, and eventually the first of four Williams in a photograph — Jr., III, IV — each raised on the same instruction he gave every child who walked past his office.
This site is kept by his family so that the students, colleagues and neighbors who knew him can find him again.