Hi my name is Jonathan Williams and I love teaching. I spent my youth and adolonecense developing this love. Via the subjects and the medium at which I teach. I Teach Sociocultural lessons on a Mass Media level. I use film and relevant other mediums to teach people about themselves and the world around them.
Here's a little bit about how I have gotten hear.
I was born in South Bend, Indiana, where I lived until high school—though I spent nearly every summer in Chicago, slowly growing a relationship with the city that would later become my home. Growing up in a working-class Midwestern community in a deeply conservative state, I saw firsthand how the environment shapes opportunity—and how resilience shapes response. I felt like a big fish in a small pond, and I knew it was time to expand.
I moved to Chicago for high school and found myself at a majority-Black school—97% Black, to be exact—where I found not just community, but identity. I transferred to King College Prep in the fall of 2017, and within two months, I was elected sophomore class president. That leadership carried on into junior year, when I became junior class president and a Local School Council representative, sitting on what is essentially the school’s local board during a critical time. These experiences grounded me in civic leadership and community voice.
Outside of school, I worked as a Youth Ambassador for the Obama Foundation, focusing on the Community Benefits Agreement process tied to the Obama Presidential Center—advocating for the needs and voices of South Side residents. I later joined GoodKids MadCity, a youth-led anti-violence organization that became a platform for deep community organizing. Through GKMC, I helped plan citywide events like Healing in the Park, using art and organizing as tools of resistance and repair.
My commitment to both scholarship and service was recognized with a Posse Foundation scholarship, which awarded me over $300,000 to attend Pomona College, the #1-ranked liberal arts college in the country at the time. I began studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, but eventually found my way into Pomona’s Film program, where I merged my critical inquiry with visual storytelling.
In 2023, I was awarded the Claremont Scholars Fellowship, a prestigious honor that allowed me to continue my studies at Claremont Graduate University. I’ll graduate in May 2025 with a degree in Cultural Studies, concentrating in Media Studies—integrating ethnography, media theory, and cultural critique into a practice that bridges the academic, artistic, and grassroots worlds.
Today, I move through the world as a filmmaker, sociocultural anthropologist, and ethnographer—rooted in story, driven by community, and shaped by the journey that brought me here.
