Peter Williams, Jr. | |
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| Born | 1786 |
| Died | 1840 (aged 54) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | African Free School |
| Occupation | Priest |
| Children | Amy Matilda Cassey |
| Relatives | Joseph Cassey (son in-law), Peter William Cassey (grandson) |
Peter Williams Jr. (1786–1840) was an African-American Episcopal priest, the second ordained in the United States and the first to serve in New York City. He was an abolitionist who also supported free black emigration to Haiti, the black republic that had achieved independence in 1804 in the Caribbean. In the 1820s and 1830s, he strongly opposed the American Colonization Society's efforts to relocate free blacks to the colony of Liberia in West Africa.
In 1808 he organized St. Philip's African Church in lower Manhattan, the second black Episcopal church in the United States. In 1827 he was a co-founder of Freedom's Journal, the first African-American owned and operated newspaper in the United States. In 1833, he co-founded the Phoenix Society, a mutual aid society for African Americans; that year he was also elected to the executive board of the interracial American Anti-Slavery Society.