I remember my first encounter with Robert Williams as if it happened yesterday. I was briefly introduced to Robert Williams by Mabel Williams, whom I had met three weeks earlier in Baldwin, Michigan at St. Ann's Lake County Senior Meals Program. Mabel worked as program director “for many years, sitting on the church's finance board and serving as Lector and Minister of the Eucharist.”1 During my second or third week at the center to meet with and interview Idlewild elders, Mabel invited me to a senior citizen's party at the Henrietta Summers Senior Citizens apartment reception room in Idlewild. As I entered the building that evening, Mabel introduced me to Robert. We shook hands, greeted one another, and briefly chatted. I was impressed by the humble and welcoming demeanor he displayed. I was in awe. I was teaching at West Shore Community College in Scottsville, Michigan, as an associate professor of Communication during fall 1992 and spring and summer 1993 semesters. It was in February of 1993, when I met him a second time. Robert Williams was invited to give an African American History Month presentation at West Shore. David McCullough, a former colleague and professor, who taught sociology courses, extended an invitation to join his class during what was one of Rob's annual presentations in the area. I sat in the front row of the classroom with a notepad and pen in hand eager to actively listen and take notes. I was thoroughly impressed. Rob blew my socks off as he shared stories about his family's travels, his civil rights activism, calls for armed self-defense, NAACP leadership agenda in Monroe, North Carolina, and being exiled in Cuba and China from 1961 to 1969. He also talked briefly about his return to the United States in September 1969. The details were attention getting to say the least. The national impact and international appeal that Robert and Mabel planted left a permanent footprint in American and worldwide history in shaping Black political thought during the turbulent decade of the 1960s and beyond.