Eugene Williams

Eugene Williams was born in 1910 in Texas.¹ In 1949, he married Helen White, and the following year, the couple responded to a classified ad to work for Senator Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson in Austin, Texas.² They continued to work for the Johnsons for decades and moved with them to the White House when Johnson became president in 1963.³ There, Gene took on various errands as needed, including driving the Johnsons’ car, mixing drinks, and traveling with the first family.⁴

Eugene, Helen, and the Johnsons’ personal cook, Zephyr Wright, also helped inform the president’s stance on Civil Rights. The three of them often shared their experiences with segregation and discrimination, and Johnson often relayed those first-hand accounts when lobbying for civil rights legislation. In fact, he once told Helen: “Helen, I am going to do all I can to get this voting rights bill through because of people like you and Zephyr and Gene. I feel that you and people like you have a right to the American way of life as well as anyone else.”⁵

Gene and Helen Williams remained in Washington, D.C. after the Johnsons left the White House in 1969.⁶ He passed away in 1982 and was buried at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.⁷