William J. Thompkins (July 5, 1884 - August 4, 1944) was a physician and health administrator in Kansas City, Missouri and served as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia from 1934 to his death. He first received national notice when he challenged Jim Crow Laws in Oklahoma in Federal Courts in the early 1910s. He was a successful physician and was appointed superintendent of the Old General Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri and the Assistant Commissioner of Health in that City. He wrote an influential study of the relationship between housing conditions and tuberculosis in blacks and was active in Democratic politics which garnered him attention at the highest levels of the party. He became president of the National Negro Democratic Association and was a major campaigner for the D