JOHN A. WILLIAMS, author of The King God Didn't Save, was born near Jackson, Mississippi, and like fellow black novelist, John O. Killens, began writing while he was a soldier in a jimcrow regiment in the Pacific. Williams, along with Killens, Ellison and others, was strongly influenced by Richard Wright, who was also from Mississippi, and like Wright, Williams has traveled and lived in Africa and Europe. Perhaps it is because of this common background and experience that he has obtained a particular understanding of Wright, and is the author of a perceptive biography of him, The Most Native of Sons.

The King God Didn't Save, a controversial biography of Martin Luther King. Jr., is Wliliams' tenth book. The others include five novels, The Angry Ones, Night Song, Sissie, The Man Who Cried I Am, and. Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light. His last two novels have dealt particularly with the increasing level of violence and irrationality in the attitudes and actions of white America and the effect of this on black people everywhere.

This interview took place at the Boston University Afro-American Studies Department in Brookline where Williams delivered a guest lecture.

You once said "Writing is a craft or profession or rite of stupidity that can bring oblivion swifter than anything else I know." In light of the reaction to "The King God Didn't Save" which definition seems the most accurate?

Well, I don't know, it's-some people have called it stupid, and some people have predicted that I was headed for oblivion. What was the other thing?

Craft or profession.

Well, it wasn't a profession either. It was something that I felt compelled to do; because I see certain things I don't wish to see in the black movement that people are involved in, and that is, to deal with things in the same superficial manner that white people deal with things, to never probe beneath the surface to get at the gear, the mechanisms of things. So I did the book and it may well be that all of these things will fall upon my head. But I'm only sorry I did it in terms of the unease that it's caused my family and, I suppose, me too. But these are things that pass. It wasn't as though what has happened is totally unexpected. I expected it to be something about what's it's been like.

Could one say that your book is also about the God King didn't save?

The God King didn't save-that's fair enough, yeah. In that section that involved Protestants, Catholics and Jews, our three major religious organizations, the feeling I tried to set down is that, in spite of all the professions of religiosity, that these groups are more politically involved than in any other consideration. I think I did say that this man came along talking about religion, dealing with religion, and he was met with violence. As far as I'm concerned, religion had its last opportunity to flourish or reflourish . . . when Martin Luther King was alive.

Had King lived, what directions might he have followed?

I think his last year or so pointed him in the direction of less reliance upon the aid and assistance of the Federal government, but more on his own charisma. The Poor People's March of course is a primary example, and he had been, as James Foreman said it, in the armpit of the Federal government. Jim had been trying to get him out from under that so he could do his own thing without being monitored and advised. I think he, King, was getting into that. Unfortunately, he was monitored in other ways. And King was not the only one. Since the book has come out, I don't suppose not a month goes by when somebody doesn't tell me about some other pictures or some people in pictures that I hadn't even heard about before. So, apparently the surveillance of King was infinite, let's say. But I think . . . well, try to put yourself in the situation. Here you are, a charismatic leader, and perhaps more than that. Perhaps the bona fide leader by virtue of having received the Nobel prize, by virtue of commanding audiences wherever you go. Here you've been doing what any other man does given the opportunity-human response to human invitation, if you will. Suddenly these people come up and say, well, we've been bugging you, and wiretapping you, and we've been photographing you, and you better stop it. Well, at that point, the man has to make a choice whether he is going to be concerned about himself, his family, his children-that's five people-or millions of black people, not only millions of black people in 1967, but millions of black people for all the rest of time. I think he probably made a choice to go with the masses.

Do you see anyone filling his gap today?

WELL, I don't see anybody, I think I sort of predicted in the book that Jesse Jackson would be groomed next, and last fall or winter, Time magazine did a cover story on Jesse. I don't think we are ever going to have a leader who comes down-I'm using this advisedly because it is totally impossible for black people to have one leader-King was assigned to us by the white power structure, and we took him. We took Malcolm. And they got rid of Malcolm and we were left with King and several other lesser deities. But I don't think we'll ever see a leader assigned to us again from that route of publicity . . . because we've learned that when leaders are bred in the fashion of King and Malcolm X that something very terrible happens to them ultimately. They can be assassinated in the press or assassinated for real.

In the book you deal with power of the media . . . How are we to deal with it?

I have to agree with you that the media can make or break or cripple or assassinate anybody it chooses to, not only black but white as well, polka-dot. I don't foresees in the immediate future any high-level black editors on powerful American newspapers or magazines. By that I mean decision-making levels. I don't see black people getting into that in my lifetime. The system's so tied up that we almost have to forget it for now. Guys your age and, my little boy, Dennis' age may ultimately arrive at those levels, but you have to ask your selves, what is it going to cost you? What kind of compromise are you going to make. Yet if we throw television in with newspapers, you see that we're in a totally untenable position. The black press is as nothing, and it's very difficult to speak to a brother or sister through the white press.