 The following year, Williams was dismissed by the elders of his Paris, Arkansas, church for being too radical (i.e., for fraternizing with blacks) and was subsequently jailed, beaten, and almost killed when he tried to organize an interracial hunger march of tenant farmers in Fort Smith, Arkansas, near the Oklahoma border.His life was saved only because his activities attracted newspaper publicity and the attention of northerners.One of these was Willard Uphaus, a professor of divinity at Yale University, who had recently been appointed executive secretary of the National Religion and Labor Foundation, and who became Williams' admirer and supporter.