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Porsha Williams Recalls the First Time She Experienced Racism as a Child
"Now that I look back and I can research and understand what I was a part of, I feel empowered," said the RHOA cast member.
Porsha Williams has spent the past week peacefully protesting in Atlanta to support the Black Lives Matter movement, but this is certainly not the first time The Real Housewives of Atlanta cast member has participated in a march for social justice. Porsha is the granddaughter of Civil Rights leader and philanthropist Rev. Hosea Williams, and during a special two-part episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, she recalled the first time she remembers experiencing racism at a protest at the age of 6.
“I was about 6 years old when I went to my first march and it was here in Georgia, Forsyth County,” Porsha explained in the video above, adding how excited she was to “go to work” with her grandfather, before she was “smacked in the face with racism.”
“We came across the Ku Klux Klan, who decided they were going to protest our protest. They threw rocks at us,” said Porsha. “I actually got hit with one, and they chased us all the way back to the buses. We had bus-loads of people with us. They chased us back to the buses and called us the n-word, and any other thing you can imagine the KKK would be calling us.”
Porsha explained that although she didn’t necessarily understand what was happening as a child, she has since researched and reflected on the experience.
“Now that I look back and I can research and understand what I was a part of, I feel empowered,” she noted, later adding, “What I got out of that was to keep going regardless. I never saw my grandfather stop, I never saw my dad stop, and the movement is still continuing on and I think that is a part of what’s inside of me that’s not going to stop. I know that people are protesting now and I know that a lot of times, when the media tops covering it, that it kind of dies down and ends, but it’s not going to stop this time.”
For the latest reporting on the Black Lives Matter protests from NBC News and MSNBC’s worldwide team of correspondents, including a live blog with minute-to-minute updates, visit NBCNews.com and NBCBLK.
