Sudie Lawrence Williams (November 11, 1872 – July 21, 1940) was a music educator in Dallas public schools and became known as the person who saved the Dallas Symphony!

Sudie was born in Bellville, Texas to Dr. and Mrs. Otis Laurence Williams. In 1894, she started teaching in Dallas schools and later became assistant supervisor of music in 1910. She was promoted to supervisor in 1913 - the same year that Dallas schools acquired their first phonograph.

She was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree by Chapel Hill College in 1915 and later studied at the University of Chicago, Cornell University, and the University of California.

Sudie was an active board member of the Dallas Symphony Society. In 1939, the board voted to dissolve the group but in protest she organized a mass meeting and devoted herself to the cause of a new symphony. She succeeded and was known as the person who saved the Dallas Symphony!

Miss Williams, who never married, died at her home at 6831 Clayton in Dallas on July 21, 1940, and was buried in Oak Cliff Cemetery in Dallas. Her estate included a library of 525 books and pamphlets relating to music, which she gave to Southern Methodist University.

A Dallas Morning News article soon after her death explained her importance to the community: "Miss Sudie’s great work was to educate the masses to enjoy music, leaving the performance of music to the few who felt the call. She realized from the outset that music appreciation is merely a matter of overcoming the economic difficulty of musical presentation. She seized upon every device that might make more and more music. First it was the phonograph and then it was the radio with the boon of the Damrosch hour over NBC."

Dallas Independent School District opened Sudie L. Williams Elementary School in 1952 and it became a Gifted and Talented School in 2018.