Main Street Sidewalks Were Mr. Melvin’s Vision

In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.—Acts 2:17 (Quoting the Prophet Joel)
For the past month or so, construction has been taking place on Main Street in Whitesboro. You know how such projects go, hated while they are happening, loved, yet long forgotten when they are completed and the improvements are routinely enjoyed without a second thought. A $200,000 NJDOT Safe Routes to Transit Program grant funded the project.
Last week, I noticed quiet had returned to the neighborhood. I wanted to see those concrete ribbons that form a safe means of passage along the roadway linking Pennsylvania Avenue and Route 9. Some might think those walkways just happened by themselves, like dew in the morning. I refuse to believe that, having heard the late Melvin Willie Williams chide Middle Township Committee numerous nights about installing sidewalks on Main Street.
It was a passion that he would not let die. He would unabashedly demand sidewalks on Main Street. In like fashion he demanded a “real” post office for Whitesboro, not just a trailer. If that trailer had to remain, next to the Martin Luther King Community Center, (and it has) Williams demanded it be turned sideways, so it would be more visible from Main Street.
I snapped the photos of those precious sidewalks that accompany this column, and could feel “Mr. Melvin” at my side. I could see him smiling for what he had accomplished, albeit posthumously.
Sidewalks, to Williams, a native Virginian, were not merely concrete things in the ground. They represented care from those in office who wanted to provide a safe means by which children and adults could walk, and take pride in their community. No longer would they be relegated to walk out in the roadway, and risk their lives, instead they would have a safe way to get around their hometown. To Melvin that was vital.
“Mr. Melvin,” at 85, passed to a better place on Aug. 18, 2009. Perhaps where he now resides sidewalks are made of gold, but his spirit is surely on those concrete conveyances on Main Street.
At this year’s Whitesboro reunion on Labor Day Weekend, I propose a fitting tribute to the gentleman ambassador from Whitesboro: rename those sidewalks “Melvin W. Williams Memorial Walkways.”
Why not? He was a man who served his country as a Coast Guard and Merchant Marine veteran. He worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad before moving to Whitesboro about 40 years prior to his death. Williams worked at the County Park Zoo until retiring.
Too often a vision remains just that, a figment. In this instance, it took “Mr. Melvin’s” unrelenting crusade to finally bring it to concrete reality, although I doubt credit will be given. Are there young men and women ready to carry their visions for community betterment to higher levels as did “Mr. Melvin?”
Williams was, according to his obituary, “a loyal and faithful member of First Baptist Church (Whitesboro) where he taught Sunday school.” He was also chaplain for the Concerned Citizens of Whitesboro, Inc., and active NAACP member.
When no government agency would fix a massive hole on the shoulder of Route 9 across from the former post office location, Williams took it upon himself to do the work. That’s the type of man he was, inspired by an old-fashioned work ethic.
Williams rests not far north of Main Street’s sidewalks in the Cape May County Veterans’ Cemetery.