Beyond the Fire and the Rain

In July 1978, Dr. Wilbert Williams Jr. was standing on a street corner in Brooklyn, New York, afraid for his life. It had been less than three months since he was awarded a medical degree from Albany Medical College in upstate New York; yet there he was—enduring racial slurs from a group of angry white people who hated him simply because of the color of his skin. Even as the police stood guarding him, the group continued to taunt him with the words, “He can go back where he came from.”

In his poignant memoir, Williams narrates the story of how he beat overwhelming odds, as an African American youth growing up in a public housing project in Brooklyn, New York, to eventually become a physician. While chronicling a journey that took him from the streets of New York through the challenges of medical school to the beautiful Caribbean island of St. Croix, he details how he learned to prevail over racism, anxiety, and depression in order to achieve his dream of becoming a doctor.

Dr. Williams’s inspiring story offers motivation to soar over the challenges of life and reach for the stars.