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AJ Williams
AJ Williams ran for election to the Durham City Council to represent Ward 3 in North Carolina. He lost in the general election on November 2, 2021.
Williams completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
AJ Williams was born in Durham, North Carolina.[1]
Elections
2021
See also: City elections in Durham, North Carolina (2021)
General election
General election for Durham City Council Ward 3
Leonardo Williams defeated AJ Williams in the general election for Durham City Council Ward 3 on November 2, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Leonardo Williams (Nonpartisan) | 50.9 | 15,122 |
 | AJ Williams (Nonpartisan)  | 48.9 | 14,529 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.3 | 79 | ||
| Total votes: 29,730 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Nonpartisan primary election
The primary election was canceled. Leonardo Williams and AJ Williams advanced from the primary for Durham City Council Ward 3.
Endorsements
To view Williams' endorsements in the 2021 election, please click here.
Campaign themes
2021
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
AJ Williams completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Williams' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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He's serving his second term as an appointed member of The City of Durham’s Participatory Budgeting Steering Committee and is on the movement board of The Cypress Fund. He has worked in non-profit finance for 4 years at Southern Vision Alliance and serves on the Program Design Team of the We Are The Ones Fund, a municipally-funded project aimed at addressing gun violence in Durham through funding community-authored solutions.
His vision for Durham is to honor the historic legacy of the city, while building the future for generations to come.- I believe the intersectionality of my identities allows me to transcend the boundaries of many communities. I’m a 34 year old, Black, trans person from the South. I understand the importance of meeting people where they are, because I too was once disillusioned by the political process, and have often felt disheartened by the inaccessibility of civic engagement. It wasn’t until I started my journey in community organizing, that I began to connect the dots. Municipal budgets and policy affect the lives of many people, at scale. Whether it’s housing, transportation, waste services, green infrastructure, or safety, we need elected officials from communities that understand the way these public services impact our quality of life.
- More than ever, the national political climate is calling for representatives of the most marginalized groups to be the voice for those who have been left out of the conversation. The same is true on the local level as well. I want to earn the trust of my constituents, the people of Durham; across race, class, age and gender. The people will always be who I’m accountable to, and I come from the people.
- The most important issue to me is addressing the cycles of violence that are plaguing our neighborhoods, disproportionately impacting Black and Latinx residents and poor and working-class residents. As City Councilmember, I would answer the urgent call from Black-led racial justice movements to reallocate resources away from unjust policing and incarceration to create lasting investment in true public safety.
As a City Councilmember, my first priority will be to support the hiring of qualified unarmed, skilled crisis responders, and administrative personnel to staff the Department of Community Safety and work with the Community Safety & Wellness Task Force to develop hiring criteria for new staff. I'd also like to introduce a proposal for a city-funded initiative and training program to hire Durham residents from impacted neighborhoods to be Care Responders in the Department of Community Safety. This will strengthen community engagement and build restorative responses to harm between residents including developing holistic, skilled, care-based options that do not rely on law enforcement officers for resident emergencies to handle mental health situations and quality of life calls.
Our City needs a more thoughtful approach to being in conversation and relationship with communities impacted by cycles of violence, interpersonal harm, and criminalized behavior. People are hurting, and young people are dying. We need more intentional interventions that are not purely reactionary, but taking action focused on the lived experiences of those who live everyday in the crossfire.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2021 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on September 20, 2021
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