Cultural Manifesto

Explore the work of the Princeton, Indiana producer and engineer Robert Hosea Williams (also known as R. José Williams) best known for his work with Gil Scott-Heron. Williams was born in 1936 in Princeton, Indiana, the county seat of Gibson County in the state’s far southwestern corner. While his career would eventually take him far from southern Indiana, his family’s roots in the region ran deep.  His mother, Martha Alice Stewart, came from one of Gibson County’s long-established Black families. Her father, Hosea Henry Stewart, was born in Lyles Station, Indiana, one of the most significant Black settlements in the state.  Founded in the 1840s by free Black landowners, Lyles Station grew into a self-sustaining farming community with its own school, churches, businesses, and railroad access. For decades, it served as a center of Black life in the region.  Gibson County was home to several early Black settlements, formed by free Black families migrating from the South in the early 19th century. These c