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Spokane honors late civil-rights leader Sandy Williams; SCAR and Karl Maxey Center remembered
Summary
Representative Natasha Hill presented a posthumous Community Vanguard Award honoring Sandy Williams for decades of civil-rights organizing in Spokane; presenters and community leaders recalled Williams' role founding SCAR, relaunching the Black Lens and building the Karl Maxey Center.
At the Juneteenth celebration in Spokane, Representative Natasha Hill presented the 2026 Community Vanguard Award in memory of Sandy Williams, a longtime civil-rights organizer and community institution-builder.
Hill described Williams' decades of work as an organizer, journalist, filmmaker and educator who founded or helped sustain institutions such as SCAR (Spokane Community Against Racism), the Black Lens and the Karl Maxey Center. Hill said Williams "spent her life lifting up voices that too often went unheard" and framed the award as a call to continue Williams' work of building inclusive community infrastructure.
Pastor Walter Kendricks accepted the award on Williams' behalf on behalf of SCAR, the Karl Maxey Center and Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church, and urged continued activism. Organizers also referenced recent local prosecutions affecting Spokane activists and framed the award as both remembrance and a reminder of ongoing struggles for civil rights in the region.
