Civil rights activist celebrating her birthday among ten killed in Puget Sound plane crash

“Her voice will be missed, I think even by those who hated to see her walk into the meeting,” brother says

Civil rights activist Sandy Williams has been named as one of ten people who died in Washington state plane crash.

A floatplane crashed on Sunday afternoon in the waters near Mutiny Bay and Whidbey Island in the vicinity of Seattle, Washington.

Ahead of turning 61 next week, Ms Williams was on her way back from celebrating her birthday on vacation in the San Juan Islands when the plane crashed in the Puget Sound, according to KREM 2.

The US Coast Guard confirmed that Ms Williams died in the crash, her brother Rick Williams said, according to The Spokesman-Review.

Ms Williams was the publisher and editor of The Black Lens, the only newspaper focusing on the African American community in eastern Washington state, KREM 2 noted.

She was also the executive director of the Carl Maxey Center, an African American community organisation in Spokane. When founding the centre, Ms Williams chose to name it after the first African American attorney in Spokane.

Spokane City Councilwoman Betsy Wilkerson, the president of the centre’s board, said that “this is a loss to the whole community, not just the Black community”.

“A light so bright has been extinguished,” she added.

Ms Williams fundraised for the paper and community centre and she wrote many of the articles in The Black Lens, The Spokesman-Review reported. She also did the paperwork and other tasks required to start and sustain the centre and paper.

“She said she was going to do it. She did it, and she never offered any excuses,” Ms Wilkerson told the publication. “She was unapologetic about that, about trying to uplift the Black community. Her voice will be missed, I think even by those who hated to see her walk into the meeting.”

Ms Williams told the paper in 2020 that her aim when starting the paper was to focus on positive stories from the African American community in Spokane, a policy which changed after she read a report revealing that police in the area stopped Black residents more often than White individuals. The focus then moved to also include more difficult issues facing her community.

Civil rights activist Sandy Williams was one of ten people who died in a plane crash in Washington state (Screenshot / KREM 2)

“We, meaning Spokane, have a real difficult time discussing difficult things,” she told The Spokesman-Review in 2019. “I think that’s playing out right now in local politics, and we just want to bury it underground. That makes us more comfortable than just sort of putting it out there.”

Mr Williams said his sister spent two days delivering each issue of the paper in Spokane and in the Spokane Valley.

“It was really a way for her to keep her ear to the community,” he told The Spokesman-Review.

In 2018, she raised $375,000 to buy an automotive shop to house the Carl Maxey Center. The organisation started up earlier this year but previosuly helped African Americans get rental assistance during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The centre helps people with their economic and educational development but also engages in cultural issues, as well as racial justice.

“It is more than a building – it is a place where people gather and meet,” Ms Wilkerson told The Spokesman-Review.

Ms Williams’ family moved to Cheney, southwest of Spokane, when she was in the seventh grade.

“Fairness was really important to me, and when I was in junior high school, girls weren’t allowed to take shop,” Ms Williams told the outlet in 2019. “They could take home economics, and I didn’t want to take home economics. I wanted to take shop.”

The other victims were identified by the US Coast Guard as Jason Winters, Patricia Hicks, Lauren Hilty, Remy Mickel, Ross Mickel, Luke Ludwig, Rebecca Ludwig, Joanne Mera and Gabrielle Hanna, The New York Times reported.