Sylvia Williams

Sylvia Williams
11th President of Azania
In office January 14, 1931 – January 14, 1937
Vice President	Conrad Tillman Jr.
Preceded by	Jean-Pierre Boyer
Succeeded by	Conrad Tillman Jr.
Chief Federal Prosecutor for the District of Centralia
In office January 14, 1943 – January 14, 1951
President	Conrad Tillman Jr. Elliot Johnson
Preceded by	TBD
Succeeded by	TBD
Senator from Centralia
In office January 14, 1925 – January 14, 1931 Serving with Mark H. Gunne
Preceded by	TBD
Succeeded by	TBD
Personal details
Born	Sylvia Alexandra Williams (1894-12-19)December 19, 1894 Colquitt, Centralia, Azania
Died	July 10, 1985(1985-07-10) (aged 90) Colquitt, Centralia, Azania
Resting place	Barclay Presidential Cathedral
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	TBD
Children	TBD
Parents	TBD TBD
Alma mater	Arius University (B.A.) Gaffron–Young Law School (J.D.)
Profession	Politician • lawyer
Religion	Alithian

This article is part of a series about Sylvia Williams
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Sylvia Alexandra Williams (December 19, 1894 – July 10, 1985) was an Azanian politician and lawyer who served as the 11th president of Azania from 1931 to 1937. A lifelong member of the Republican Party, she was the second female as well first and only mixed-race president in the country's history, and the first woman to be elected to the office in her own right. Initially serving as a lawyer in an independent practice, Williams later went on to become a senator from her native state of Centralia from 1925 until 1931, before running a successful election campaign during the 1930 presidential election. Her presidency was dominated by the Silent War, a series of military campaigns targeted against the native African population within country that had supported the Communist Party of Azania. Through her policies and actions, Williams was directly responsible for the deaths of some 1.2 million people, most of whom were native Africans, but successfully destroyed the capacity of the communists to wage an insurgency against the federal government for decades

Born into the affluent Williams family in Colquitt, Centralia, Williams was the favorite child in a family of twelve, and spent much of her childhood attending the elite TBD Girls' School in Independence, D.L.. Her grandfather was the late-Othello Williams who had served as the second president of Azania from 1877 to 1883, whose name Williams successfully utilized to her advantage to gain favor with her peer and superiors allowing her opportunities not easily accessible to her peers. After earning her law degree from Gaffron–Young Law School, Williams acted upon her family's political connections to gain unparalleled access to the political world as an attorney for some of the most powerful men in the country. Working with several powerful political leaders in Azania, Williams made a name for herself as an aggressive legal profession with a high success rate for her clients. Having established her own political network within the government through her independent law practice, Williams entered into politics herself during the 1925 senatorial elections, winning the junior seat for her home state of Centralia.

Williams championed an aggressive approach to dealing with the native black population of Azania, citing the example of the assassination of Natanaël Poincaré in 1902 as justification for a harsh stance against communism. She introduced the Anti-Communist Act of 1926 as a method of outlawing any and all communist elements within Azania, and arresting native Azanians who were affiliated with any such groups in the country. Williams was a close confidant to President Lucas Morrison during the late-1920s, advising him on methods of approaching the attempts by European powers to influence the country, and force Azania into unfavorable treaties following the humiliation of Great Britain during the Anglo-Azanian War in 1883, and the refusal of Azania to participate in World War I on the side of the Entente. Considered a warhawk by her contemporaries, Williams held an uncompromising stance toward all foreign powers, believing that blacks had long been stepped on by every other race of people in the world, and that it was time that her people did the same. Due to these views, Williams was highly popular within the general population, many of whom had only recently immigrated to Azania due to the racism and discrimination they faced back in their homelands.

Following the assassination of President Morrison in 1929 by the Communist Party of Azania, and the refusal of his successor, Jean-Pierre Boyer, to act against the parties responsible, Williams decided to run for, and win, the presidential election in 1930. She actively pursued a policy of zero-tolerance toward communist and socialist elements within Azania, and waged what became the bloodiest period of time in Azanian history. Williams killed scores of individuals deemed "collaborators" and "conspirators" of the communists, and wiped out entire towns and villages belonging to the native Africans of Azania. Her actions resulted in the total annihilation of the insurgents' will and capacity to fight, but likewise saw her approval ratings plummet by the end of her term in 1937. The Republican Party refused to nominate her for a second term in 1936, and chose to nominate the moderate Republican Conrad Tillman Jr., who would go on to become Williams' successor and president of Azania the following year.

Feared throughout her presidency for her radical behavior in office, Williams found few political allies after leaving office in 1937. She returned to continue her independent legal practice, and later served as district attorney for Centralia from 1943 to 1951. She was ousted from her political office in 1951 by Centralia's first native African governor, George Badibanga, who sought to punish her for her political actions during the Silent War. She was granted a presidential pardon in 1954 by President Elliot Johnson, which enraged the native population, and led to weeks of protest in the streets. Williams retired to her family's estate in Colquitt, where she quietly lived out the reminder of her life until her death in 1985. Williams' legacy has since become one of the most complex and divisive in Azanian history, with Azanians of immigrant descent ranking her as one of the greatest in the country's history, while those of native African ancestry consider her to be a tyrant, mass murderer, and responsible for grave violations of human rights.

Presidency (1931–1937)

Foreign policy

Largely disinterested in the affairs of foreign powers, Williams believed that Azania would be stronger on its own, and would serve as "a beacon of civilization in a world ravaged by chaos", during to several of the speeches she gave while president whenever she was confronted on the subject. As was the case with her predecessors, Williams was adamantly opposed to entering into foreign alliances, and viewed the concept as both hypocritical to the ideals of her nation's roots, as well as an insult to the past generations of blacks who fled from other nations to settle in Azania. The idea of throwing in with any of the European empires that had or were then in the process of exploiting African land and African peoples disgusted Williams, and being a Afro-centrist and isolationist much in the mold of her Republican mentor, Lucas Morrison, was opposed in any requests for financial or material aid made from the predominately white nations of Europe and North America.

Personal life

Williams was a lifelong member of the Dikastic Order, initiated into the Dakastic Ring of Centralia in 1915 while studying at Arius University. She quickly advanced to the rank of Third Overseer, and was entrusted with the responsibility of aiding higher-ranking members with legal documents as her ring's primary clerk. A devout Alithian, the organization's devotion to combating mysticism, socialism, and atheism greatly appealed to Williams, and she was highly active within the order's ranks, exposing socialists, anarchists, and communists on the campus of the law school to fellow members of the order who held powerful positions at her university. By the end of her education at law school, Williams had progressed to the position of First Overseer, and transferred her membership to the Dikastic Ring of Independence, where she would serve as the ring's head overseer. Williams used the various Dikastic rings to advance her legal career, providing services to fellow order members who served as politicians and bureaucrats, and attained the majority of her political connections through the order. She would later state in life that the Dikastic Order had won her every election she had taken part in. Her devotion to the order and its cause was likewise cited as the primary motivating factor for pursuing and ordering the deaths of so many leftists in the country during the 1930s. By the time she was elected as president, Williams had already been elected to serve as Lady Overseer of the Dikastic Ring of Independence in 1929.

See also

• List of presidents of Azania