Endowed by trustee A. Morris Williams, Jr., and his late wife, Ruth W. Williams, the Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams, Jr. fellowship has been awarded annually to a humanities scholar since 2013.
After marrying in June 1961, Mrs. Williams joined her now husband, at Duke University to earn her bachelor’s degree in education while he completed his master’s degree in teaching. For almost 30 years, Mrs. Williams taught preschool-aged children at the Gateway School in Durham, NC and later assumed the role of school director.
Mr. Williams transitioned out of his teaching career to become a partner in the investment management firm Miller, Anderson & Sherrerd, before founding the investment firm Williams & Company in 1997 where he continues to serve as president. For many years, Williams has served Duke University as a member of the Board of Trustees (emeritus), the Divinity Board of Visitors (emeritus) and the Athletics Advisory and Leadership boards. Outside of Duke, Williams has been heavily involved in philanthropic efforts for the College of Wooster, CARE, the Free Library in Philadelphia, the National Humanities Center, the Philadelphia Scholars Fund, the Pine Tree Family Foundation and the Salvation Army.
| 2013–2014 | Martin Summers | Boston College | Race, Madness, and the State: A History of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital and Washington, D.C.’s African American Community |
| 2014–2015 | Kunal Parker | University of Miami | Immigrants and Other Foreigners: U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Law, 1600–2000 |
| 2015–2016 | Sharon Strocchia | Emory University | Cultures of Care: Women, Knowledge, and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy |
| 2016–2017 | Ásta | San Francisco State University | Categories We Live By |
| 2017–2018 | Mark Cruse | Arizona State University | Representing the Unknown: Place and Knowledge in the Manuscripts of Marco Polo’s Devisement du monde |
| 2018–2019 | Joseph E. Taylor III | Simon Fraser University | Forty-Seven Percent of the West: Congressional Conservation during the Long Progressive Era |
| 2019–2020 | Harris Feinsode | Northwestern University | Into Steam: The Global Imaginaries of Maritime Modernism |
| 2020–2021 | Melissa Bailes | Tulane University | Nature’s Clockwork: The Natural History of Time in British Literature, 1750–1859 |
| 2021–2022 | Jessica Hurley | George Mason University | Nuclear Decolonizations |
| 2022–2023 | Karima K. Jeffrey-Legette | Hampton University | Black Girls Write the Future: A Scholarly Investigation of Speculative Fiction by or about Women and Girls of African-Descent |
| 2023–2024 | Sequoia Maner | Spelman College | A Critical History of Black Elegy in the United States |
| 2024–2025 | Gabriel Eljaiek-Rodriguez | Spelman College | Dramas and Horrors of Immigration in Latinx Cinema |