Margo Lee Williams

Margo Lee Williams has researched and written extensively about her maternal Lassiter family, resulting in two books. Her first book, "Miles Lassiter (circa 1777-1850), an Early African American Quaker from Lassiter Mill, Randolph County, North Carolina: My Research Journey to Home" (Backintyme Publishing, 2011), has won a 2021 Second Place Award in African American Non-Fiction Literature from the Firebird Book Awards and the 2012 Award for a Family History from the North Carolina Genealogical Society. Her second book, released in 2016, "From Hill Town to Strieby, Education and the American Missionary Association in the Uwharrie 'Back Country' of Randolph County, North Carolina" (Backintyme Publishing), was awarded : a 2021 First Place Award in African American Non-Fiction Literature from the Firebird Book Awards; a 2018 Honorable Mention in the Non-Fiction-Genealogy category from the Readers' Favorite International Book Awards; a 2018 Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) International Book Award in History; the 2018 Phyllis Wheatley Literary Award from the National Society of Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage (SDUSMP); 2017 Gold awards for both genealogy and history from the Non-Fiction Authors' Association; Finalist in the African American History category of the 2017 Next Generation INDIE Book Awards; the 2016 Marsha M Greenlee History Award from the Afro American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS); and a 2016 Historical Book Award from the North Carolina Society of Historians. In April 2021, she published her third book, on the Rev. Islay Walden, "Born Missionary: The Islay Walden Story, (Margo Lee Williams, Personal Prologue)" who was the founding minister of Strieby Congregational Church and School, the subject of her second book.

Williams, a native New Yorker, currently resides outside Washington, DC. She has her A.B. in Sociology and French from Marquette University, an M.A. in Sociology from Hunter College, and an M.A. in Religious Education from The Catholic University of America. Williams, who is particularly interested in community histories of people of color in the southeast, especially those in North Carolina and Virginia, is a frequent lecturer for the Family History Centers in the Washington, DC area, and a former editor of the Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society.