Bert Williams

CTL-E-6248 · Person · other · 1874–1922

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07441 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6248.

Egbert Austin Williams, known as Bert Williams, was a Bahamian-born American comedian and singer born on November 12, 1874, in Nassau, Bahamas. His family moved to the United States when he was ten, settling in Riverside, California. In San Francisco in 1893 he began working with George Walker in minstrel companies, and the pair developed a double act in which Walker played a fast-talking city hustler and Williams, in blackface, played a slow-witted, woeful bumbler. They reached New York in 1896, added a cakewalk finale at Koster and Bial's, and began recording for the Victor label in 1901. Their In Dahomey, which premiered on Broadway on February 18, 1903, was the first fully realized musical comedy performed by an all-Black company; it toured England and played a command performance at Buckingham Palace. Williams composed more than seventy songs, among them "Nobody," introduced in 1905. Walker retired from the stage in February 1909 because of illness and died in January 1911. Williams then joined Florenz Ziegfeld's Follies in 1910 and was its star attraction for some eight seasons. He became a United States citizen in 1918 and died in New York City on March 4, 1922.

The record

• Also known as: Egbert Austin Williams

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 7 — 747 Program, FINAL Wave 13; seventh Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): Gate A CLEAR (hand-checked 2026-10-16): no Bert Williams entity, alias, or variant in the live graph (3,910 entities). Containment hit hand-resolved: CTL-E-2339 Robert Williams, a Chicago promoter, is a different person. ID CTL-E-6248 free at staging. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger — Tier 4 corpus scan tail, corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked #2714. The scan supplied the name string only; every fact is sourced under CTL-GOV-004. SCOPE GATE: Bahamian-born Black vaudeville and Broadway entertainer whose Williams and Walker productions and Ziegfeld Follies years broke the color line of the American commercial stage; a foundational figure for every Black stage record in this graph. Vital status: DECEASED — died March 4, 1922, in New York City (Britannica; American National Biography, both accessed 2026-10-16). STATISTICS — American National Biography (accessed 2026-10-16): Williams composed more than seventy songs in his lifetime; the Williams and Walker company carried a $2,300-a-week payroll in 1908, as quoted there. CONFLICTS SHOWN, NOT BLENDED: (1) Birth year — Britannica and the ANB give 1874, while Britannica also notes his Woodlawn Cemetery headstone uses 1875, and some reference works give Antigua and 1875; this record follows Britannica/ANB (Nassau, 1874). (2) Partnership start — the ANB dates the pair's first work together to 1893, Britannica dates the partnership to 1895. (3) Walker's death — Britannica's text says Williams went solo after Walker's death 'in 1909'; the ANB shows Walker retired in February 1909 and died in January 1911 (its heading gives 6 Jan. 1911). The description uses the ANB sequence. (4) Bandanna Land is dated 1908 by Britannica and 1907 by the ANB; no year for it is asserted in the description. MEDIA: photo HELD (HELD — candidate: the Library of Congress portrait of Bert Williams carried on the Britannica Kids media page (Library of Congress digital file cph 3b12509); no file page was read at file level and NO license is claimed — PHOTO-001 verification deferred. — named candidate only; file-level rights verification per CTL-PHOTO-001 still required; no license claimed); chart per media_spec (coordinator builds the CTL chart from this record's sourced facts); video HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (shorts-link-map-2026-10-15.json, 233 rows, checked by name and variants, 2026-10-16); no near-miss title found.); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (person record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (Created for this packet (CTL graphic, CTL-PHOTO-001 lane) from the record's sourced facts.) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (shorts-link-map-2026-10-15.json, 233 rows, checked by nam) | audio = HELD (No rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged; audio slot held pending a CTL-PHOTO-001-consistent rights basi)

Sources

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Bert Williams (accessed 2026-10-16) — born Nov. 12, 1874, Nassau, Bahamas, died Mar. 4, 1922, New York City; family moved to the U.S. when he was ten; In Dahomey a Broadway success in 1903 with a London command performance at Buckingham Palace; Abyssinia (1906) and Bandanna Land (1908); Follies 1910–1919; Nobody (1905); U.S. citizen 1918; headstone uses 1875 as birth year — http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/644314/Bert-Williams (build store)
• American National Biography (Oxford University Press), Williams, Bert, and George Walker, by Thomas F. DeFrantz (accessed 2026-10-16) — Williams 12 Nov. 1874–4 Mar. 1922, born Nassau; Walker 1873–6 Jan. 1911 per the entry heading; met in San Francisco in 1893; New York 1896; Victor recordings from 1901; In Dahomey Broadway premiere Feb. 18, 1903; more than seventy songs composed; Walker retired Feb. 1909; Williams joined Ziegfeld's Follies in 1910 for some eight seasons — http://www.slippage.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/SE-defrantzWILLIAMSANDWALKERAmerican-National-Biography-Online.pdf (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6248 · Combined Graph record U-07441 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources.
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