The City of Statesboro will host a street renaming ceremony on Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024, at 11 a.m. to commemorate the renaming of Brown Street to Loretta’s Way.
The ceremony will take place at 23 W. Grady Street Extension with parking on Brown Street. Statesboro Mayor Jonathan McCollar, District 2 City Councilmember Paulette Chavers and friends of Loretta Johnson Williams will offer remarks before the official unveiling of the new street sign.
Loretta J. Williams was a proud Statesboro native and prominent figure in the community. In the 1970s, she began advocating for individuals who struggled with substance abuse, which led to her long-term career with the State of Georgia where she held several positions and made a powerful impact on everyone that she encountered.
Loretta started working for Pineland Behavioral Health in 1977 as a substance abuse counselor and at John’s Place, formerly known as Vista Hall, as a substance abuse case manager. She was an assistant director and was among the first to write a grant and receive funding for a program called The Women’s Place for pregnant women who needed rehabilitation assistance in 1990. Graduates of the Women’s Place program joined the “Bringing Everybody Strength Together” (BEST) mentoring program, which Loretta also founded.
After retiring from the State of Georgia, she became employed by the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Department where she continued to advocate for individuals who struggled with substance abuse. Bulloch County honored Loretta with the Dean Day Smith Service to Mankind Award in 1993. Her devotion to supporting the community led her to organize a few National Night Out on Crime rallies and create a youth group called the State Minority Advocacy Group for Alcohol and Drug Prevention (SMAGADP) which worked to get youth into rehabilitation centers.
As a longtime civic activist, Loretta ran against an incumbent for a District 2 seat in 1995, pledging to make the city a better place for all to live and raise children. She fulfilled her political commitment to her community by volunteering at local voting polls and helping campaign for Lee Deloach during both of his terms. She was also on the political action committee of the Bulloch County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She was chairwoman of the City Renaissance Park committee and was a member of the Bulloch County Alcohol and Drug Task Force. Loretta was also asked to serve on the zoning committee for the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners. In her spare time, Loretta found joy in traveling to visit her children, shopping, playing solitaire, and completing word searches.
Loretta J. Williams, Statesboro native and long-time community advocate, died in June of 2022 at the age of 84. Statesboro’s City Council voted to approve the renaming of Brown Street in the city’s West Side to honor the life and memory of Williams at the Nov. 7, 2023, council meeting.
