Mary Williams

Adoption There was no formal discussion of adoption within the Fonda household. Troy Garity, Fonda's biological son with activist Tom Hayden, stated, "She just sort of came down [to live with us] and it was fine and happy for me because it was somebody that I had a connection with. She was older, which is always cool when you have a teenager who's actually listening to you!"

No formal adoption papers were drawn up, and on Williams's mother's blessing, she lived with Fonda for the rest of her adolescence and into young adulthood. She was raised with Vanessa Vadim and brother Troy as one of the children, with everyone involved feeling that she was part of the family. It took time for Mary to transition to the affluence of Fonda's world. Mary attended house parties with many celebrities, including Robert De Niro, Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones, Desmond Tutu; Sophia Loren taught Mary how to cut ripe cactus.

Career Williams worked as a fundraiser for the International Rescue Committee in their Atlanta office. When she saw refugees coming in from Sudan, she developed a passion for working with them, eventually leaving her job with IRC in 2001 to work more closely with Sudanese refugees through her own organization.

She founded the Lost Boys Foundation, a group that works with the Lost Boys of Sudan to help them after they have been displaced by the Second Sudanese Civil War. At her urging, writer Dave Eggers began talking to Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee and member of the Lost Boys Foundation program, about Deng writing a memoir. The work eventually became What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, which was published in 2006. Williams wrote her own book about the lost boys of Sudan, the children's book Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan. It was published by Lee & Low Books in 2005.

Williams wrote The Lost Daughter: A Memoir about her life experiences, focusing on her life with two families. The book was published in 2013. Kirkus Reviews called the book "A tender memoir of love and redemption" as well as "A compassionate tale of soul-searching and family love."

She was a supporter of Barack Obama when he was running for reelection as President of the United States in 2012. Writing from Buenos Aires, Williams stated, "As a child of the Black Power Movement I can’t deny that I’m happy to see a Black man in the White House, but my politics are more than skin deep. The thought of entrusting our national environmental treasures to folks who only seek to exploit them keeps me up at night. I’m voting for Obama in November because we have too much to lose."