Hazel Dell Williams; Founder of Early Beauty School for Blacks

Hazel Dell Williams, 89, credited with starting the first cosmetology school for blacks west of the Mississippi River in 1930 when she opened her Henrietta Beauty School at 18th Street and Central Avenue in Los Angeles. It was an era when blacks found the cosmetology field closed to them because there was no place for training. With Henrietta Kent she started the school, now operating as the Universal College of Beauty in South-Central Los Angeles which over the years has sent thousands of licensed graduates into the field. She also founded the California Cosmetology Legislative Education Committee, a lobbying organization in Sacramento for black beauticians. In Los Angeles on Sunday of a heart attack.