Sir George Williams University Sir George Williams University Sir George Williams University was a university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It merged with Loyola College to create Concordia University on August 24, 1974. In 1851, the first YMCA in North America was established on Ste-Helene street in Old Montreal. Beginning in 1873, the YMCA offered evening classes to allow working people in the English-speaking community to pursue their education while working during the day. Sixty years later, the Montreal YMCA relocated to its current location on Stanley Street in Downtown Montreal. In 1926, the education program at the YMCA was re-organized as Sir George Williams
George Washington Williams George Washington Williams George Washington Williams (October 16, 1849 – August 2, 1891) was an American Civil War soldier, Baptist minister, politician, lawyer, journalist, and writer on African-American history. In the late 1880s, Williams turned his interest to Europe and Africa. After having been impressed by meeting King Léopold II of Belgium, he traveled in 1890 to the Congo Free State (then owned by the king) to see its development. Shocked by the widespread, brutal abuses and near-slavery imposed on the Congolese, he wrote an open letter to Leopold in 1890 about the suffering of the region's native inhabitants at