Lady and Liberty: Beauty and Solidarity During an Era of Segregation

This article originally appeared in the January 2026 issue of Elegant Island Living Magazine.  Josh Dukes is a local historian and chair of the Brunswick Historic Preservation Board. He is co-author of the book Brunswick: Past & Present, available at local retailers and online.

Mrs. Arilee Cox christens the SS William Cox, a Liberty Ship named in her late husband’s honor.
J.A. Jones Shipyard, Brunswick, Georgia. December 1944.

Eighty-one years ago this December, a young Savannah widow named Arilee Cox stood before a crowd at the J. A. Jones Shipyard in Brunswick to christen a Liberty Ship bearing her husband’s name. 

Obituary for Mr. William Cox,
The Afro-American, Baltimore, Maryland.
January 13, 1945.

The SS William Cox joined the fleet in in December 1944, but its story began years earlier with the man it honored. William “Willie” Cox was born in Cairo, Georgia in 1898 and spent more than 35 years in maritime work, with his career beginning as a coal passer on the Merchant Miner Steamship line. At the dawn of World War II, Cox joined the Merchant Marines and survived two ship sinkings before he became a fireman aboard the SS David H. Atwater. On April 2, 1942 the ship was shelled and sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Virginia. Cox was killed in the attack. 

When the U.S. Maritime Commission selected Willie’s name for a Liberty Ship two years later, it marked an important milestone. The SS William Cox was the first Liberty Ship built in Brunswick to honor an African American serviceman, and one of only seventeen Liberty Ships nationwide to carry the name of a Black honoree. It was also the seventh total vessel completed by the J. A. Jones Shipyard, which would eventually turn out 99 cargo ships before the war ended. Construction of the SS William Cox brought out an unusual show of solidarity that winter. Black and white shipyard workers volunteered to work without pay on Christmas Day 1944, pushing to finish the vessel ahead of schedule as a gift “for the boys overseas.” For a wartime coastal city operating under segregation, the moment stood out then and still does today.