Deloris Williams left Pembroke as a young Black woman in 1978 to find opportunity, taking a Greyhound bus north to New York in search of a better life.

She built one, then moved back home in 1995 to help take care of her aging parents. She found some things had changed for the better since she’d left.

Some things remained the same. “The laws changed,” Williams said. “But some people hadn’t.”

That continues to this day. There are, she said, still those who are racist at heart. Not everyone. Maybe not even a majority. But enough to make her wary. And make her words sound sad and perplexed and defiant, all at the same time.

“I went through a lot coming up, a lot,” she said. “It’s different now so don’t get me wrong. Some things have changed, and the best part is now they just can’t do anything or say anything without people knowing about it.”

There are questions she wants answered, however, with regards to Black history. Perhaps the biggest is what started racism in the first place.

“What I would still like to know, is what made some folks think they’re better than we are,” she asked. “Is it because of our color?”

Helping others

For the past several years Williams, who is 71, has been a constant and dedicated volunteer for Bryan County Family Connection, helping others however she can.

She was there in the aftermath of the April 5 tornado; she’s there pitching in at the food bank or clothing store, dispensing food or clothing with love and hugs and prayer.

Her rule of thumb when it comes to treating her fellow human beings is pretty simple.

“You have to be careful how you treat people,” she said. “That person you’re thinking about mistreating just might be an angel.”

That approach to life was at least partly due to her upbringing.

Her father was Pastor Earvin Lee Williams, and her mother was Mary Lee Williams.

They built Zion Hill Holiness Church in Pembroke and passed on to their daughter a desire to help her fellow man however she could.

Along the way, Deloris Williams graduated from the Dingle School in 1969, the year after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis and the same year schools in Bryan County were integrated. After graduation, she started working jobs in Pembroke and Claxton.

But Williams didn’t think she was getting anywhere, and to make matters worse, she bridled at how some employers treated their Black workers.

Ultimately that led her to New York, where she worked for Readers Digest, then for IBM in upstate New York, and also was trained and certified as a nursing assistant.

Williams met her husband, Dave Williams, in 1982 at IBM in Ossining, also home to Sing Sing prison.

It is coincidence the two share the same last name.

Deloris and David got married June 23 1987. They spent the next 18 years building a family and making twice yearly trips to Pembroke – in July and for Christmas – but always returned up north. And then home beckoned.

Deloris’ Williams father was blind and her mother needed help to care for him. So on Sept. 13, 1995, she and Dave and their children packed up and drove South. And not without some trepidation.

“It was sad to come back,” Deloris Williams said. “But I believed God had a plan for me.”

Once back, Williams got a job at Walmart, one she’d work from 1996 until 2020 when she retired, and also took care of her parents and brother, Orrin, an Army veteran who died at the age of 61 in 2011. More deaths followed. Her father passed away in 2012 and her mother in 2015, leaving Deloris – whose children Twan and Danielle were grown and on their own – looking for something to do in her spare time.

Her husband retired from IBM, was already volunteering up a storm – in the NAACP, with the Boy Scouts, on various boards and for various agencies. He was also working for Gateway and became a member of the Bryan County Family Connection board of directors.

Williams, who served a term on the St. Joseph’s Hospital Authority in Pembroke, decided to give Family Connection a try after BCFC’s lead volunteer, Dot Doyle, told Williams she could use the help. And, Williams was impressed by Wendy Futch, BCFC’s longtime director.

Futch in turn called Williams one of her most dependable and dedicated volunteers, though one who often remains in the background.

“You can count on her to help, no matter what kind of situation. Whatever the job is, she just jumps in and is like, ‘let’s get it done,’” Futch recalled. “Sometimes I’m like, ‘let’s do it later,’ and she’s like, ‘No, let’s do it now.’ She’s a lovely lady. Her and Mr. Dave both are lovely people.”

Williams said Futch is a kindred spirit, one who will give everything she has to help someone else.

“Wendy is one of a kind, she doesn’t care what color you are, she doesn’t care what kind of house you live in, if you walk through that door needing help and if there’s any way she can help you she’s going to help you,” Williams said. “I feel the same way.”

And at an age where a lot of people are looking to retirement and spending time taking it easy, Williams seems unlikely to slow down anytime soon.

She talks of the rising cost of food and an increasing number of working people living paycheck to paycheck and yet still finding themselves struggling to make ends meet at the end of the month.

It’s a never ending cycle, but one she seems determined to see through, whether it’s cleaning up after a food giveaway or doling out kind words and clothing after a disaster.

“I love helping people,” said Williams, who years ago earned a certified nursing assistant degree to work in nursing homes. “All I’ve ever wanted to do is help, and sometimes I wish I could’ve spent all my life helping others in some way. But it’s never too late. Look at me.”

That trait, she said, was passed down to her from her father, whose ministry was about spreading love and hope and taking care of one another, no matter how others might view the color of someone’s skin.

“He was like that, so at least I can say I come by it honestly,” Williams said.