Damian Williams, the First Black U.S. Attorney of the S.D.N.Y.

In its long history The Southern District graduates have served on the Supreme Court as US attorney general, war and homeland security secretary, FBI director, police commissioner, Manhattan district attorney, and New York City Mayor (Mr. Giuliani). Another who served in the 1880s later received the Nobel Peace Prize.

But the office has never been run by a black man.

“Damian is not just going to be a black US attorney,” said Martin S. Bell, a former southern district attorney who is also black. “He’s also someone who offers heightened potential for thought and creativity when it comes to larger criminal justice issues – and the office’s own ability to be credible to a rich, large, and diverse clientele of New Yorkers.”

Mr. Williams was born in Brooklyn but grew up in the Atlanta area, where his family moved when he was a toddler. His parents, immigrants from Jamaica in the early 1970s, met while studying at Howard University in Washington, where his father was a medical student and his mother was a nursing student.

He attended a private day school, Woodward Academy, excelled in academic excellence, and served as student body president for his senior year in high school.

At Harvard, Mr. Williams studied economics; from the University of Cambridge he holds a Masters in International Relations.

He joined the Kerry Campaign in August 2003, initially working in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and later in South Carolina. In the spring of 2004, after months of law school, he was hired by Terry McAuliffe, then chairman of the Democratic National Committee, as his “body man” – his driver, executive assistant and one of his closest associates.

“I threw so much at him,” said Mr. McAuliffe. “Never rattled, always smiling, rock solid.”

But at the end of July, Mr Williams was shaken when his older sister Tiffani Simone Williams, 25, to whom he was devoted, suddenly died in Atlanta of a root canal infection.