By Ryan Michaels |\u00a0The Birmingham Times<\/p>\n
Samantha Williams knows a little something about what educational opportunities can mean in the life of a student \u2013 hers and others.<\/p>\n
Williams grew up in a house her father Roy built in Montrose, Alabama, an unincorporated community in Baldwin County which lies along the eastern portion of Mobile Bay. Her family didn\u2019t make a lot of money.<\/p>\n
But that didn\u2019t stop Williams, 37, from leaving Fairhope High School in Alabama for Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., on scholarships from the university and Fairhope\u2019s Rotary Club, and later, a career in which she spent years in Johannesburg, South Africa and served as global director for an international education nonprofit.<\/p>\n
But Williams, who left her post at Teach For All earlier this year, isn\u2019t done yet.<\/p>\n
Williams, who came back to the United States in 2017, has been executive director of Birmingham Promise, which provides scholarships and apprenticeships to city public school students, since March of this year and said she intends to help the program live up to its name.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want us to be talking to kids earlier and earlier, working as closely as possible with the Birmingham City Schools (BCS) system, so that this feels like it\u2019s something that is just a guaranteed promise, real promise at the end,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
At Georgetown, where she earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in history, Williams said she first became interested in the field of education, through a work-study job in which she tutored public school students in D.C.<\/p>\n
Some of the students, many from low-income families, simply \u201cdidn\u2019t stand a chance\u201d because of the quality of the school system, Williams recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was really my beginning, when I was working in those schools, and tutoring kids who were too old to not be able to spell the things they couldn\u2019t spell or read the things they couldn\u2019t read, and you thought about how far behind they\u2019d be for the rest of their lives because of this barrier,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
During her time at Georgetown, Williams also studied in Dakar, Senegal, where she became interested internationally in education.<\/span><\/p>\n A graduate of Georgetown University, Williams also has a master\u2019s degree in development studies from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and a master\u2019s degree in education from Harvard University.<\/p>\n After finishing her degree in history at the university in 2006, Williams worked in dropout prevention in Atlanta, Georgia before receiving an ambassadorial scholarship from the Fairhope, AL Rotary Club in 2008, enabling her to study at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was supposed to last for one year\u2026[I] moved to South Africa to study education and social development in Johannesburg, and kind of just stayed in South Africa for almost the next decade,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n She also worked at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa and through her travels saw areas for improvement in the education system.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw how some of the schools there were failing the children. I knew that if that remained the situation, then unemployment and crime were not going away,\u201d Williams told the Mobile Press-Register<\/a> in 2010.<\/p>\n Oprah<\/strong><\/p>\n Through her work with the school, Williams said she also met Winfrey and spoke with her many times.<\/p>\n \u201cShe came to the school pretty often\u2026When I was there, she would come for all the graduations, she would come for workshops, so she was just very present,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n The first time the two met, Williams said Winfrey had stopped by for the beginning of the school year and encouraged Williams in her work with the girls.<\/p>\n \u201cI was in the office, looking over the list of the girls. It had all their names and their faces, and I was just trying to learn as many names as possible, and [Winfrey] just walked up to me and put her hand on my shoulder and said, \u2018You\u2019re gonna do great, you\u2019ll learn all of them soon enough, and you\u2019re gonna be great,\u2019\u201d Williams recalled.<\/p>\n Having \u201cadored\u201d Winfrey through her college years, Williams said it was the \u201cweirdest thing\u201d going back to her apartment to watch Winfrey\u2019s show after their first meeting.<\/p>\n Williams\u2019 nicest memory of Winfrey was when the TV star complimented her outfit, a long, multicolored satiny gown made in South Africa, at an event one night.<\/p>\n \u201cI said like, \u2018Oh my goodness, like, that\u2019s a huge compliment coming from you,\u2019 and [Winfrey] said, \u2018Well, it\u2019s a beautiful dress\u2019 and just sort of kept moving, and I was like, \u2018Oh my goodness gracious.\u2019 Oprah complimented this dress. I\u2019m never taking it off,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n Winfrey remained an encouraging figure throughout the time that Williams knew her, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cShe just made it a point to remember things about my life and what I was going through,\u201d Williams said. \u201cIt was unreal to have such a woman take an interest in you, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n While working in Africa, Williams said she became deeply embedded in her community, which enabled her to be effective in her education work. However, that \u201cundeniable tie\u201d could be stronger in the U.S., she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was able to do that work in Africa for nearly a decade because I was there, I was proximate, deeply rooted, and yet I still knew that I would be even more effective in the US and in particular in the South,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n Williams began working with Teach For All in 2012, while still in South Africa, and worked her way up to become head of the Africa region in 2016. That same year, her father died, another thing which spurred her return to America.<\/p>\n \u201cI realized that I didn\u2019t have all the time in the world with my family, or to do something about the conditions that I was so familiar with at home. I just decided some places need leadership in order to make a difference, and maybe it\u2019s time for me to move on from training and supporting other leaders, to step into that role myself,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n After serving as head of the Africa region at Teach For All for about a year, Williams moved back to the United States in 2017 to become chief of staff to CEO Wendy Kopp before becoming global director for girls\u2019 education in 2019.<\/p>\n In March of this year, Williams was named the new executive director of Birmingham Promise, and after heading the organization for about half a year, Williams said she wants to grow what the program offers and better tailor those to students\u2019 needs and get rid of thinking that separates \u201ccollege-bound kids\u201d and everybody else.<\/p>\n \u201c[People should think,] \u2018Here are all my kids who are going to turn into adults who need to figure out how to live for themselves and support themselves, and contribute to their communities and their families,\u2019\u201d she added.<\/p>\n The Magic City <\/strong><\/p>\n Since taking on the role, Williams said she\u2019s felt good about living and working in Birmingham, good enough that she just bought a home in the North Crestwood neighborhood, where she lives with her youngest sister Marilyn, a teacher at the Altamont School in the Redmont Park neighborhood.<\/p>\n \u201cMy first weekend here, my sister and I went to Vulcan and just sort of looked out at the city, like, \u2018Oh we live here now. It\u2019s kind of awesome,\u2019 and I think it\u2019s sort of felt like that sense. I really like Birmingham,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n Also since being here, Williams said she\u2019s rapidly made strong friendships.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of my friends here helped my sister get into a medical program that she needed to get into. I have folks who are in my life in ways that I haven\u2019t made these kinds of friends since I was like in the college, grad school friend-making zone,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n Back in her home state, Williams has also focused on her family. Growing up in rural Alabama, she and her family \u2014 father Roy, mother Ruth, as well as her sisters Marilyn, Sophia and Stephanie \u2014 have always been tight knit.<\/p>\n Williams, the oldest of the daughters, said she and her sisters were \u201cpretty self-sufficient kids\u201d growing up.<\/p>\n \u201cI probably legally shouldn\u2019t say at what age we started hanging out at the house alone, but as the oldest, I was in charge of the youngest. My dad would get home around like three o\u2019clock in the afternoon from work, and mom got home at five. We were very close and insular as a family,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n However, being the oldest, Williams said people didn\u2019t give her as much as her sisters.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the oldest, I got less than they did because they\u2019re the cute little sisters. The oldest child is like the guinea pig, and then by the time the youngest child comes around, they don\u2019t think there are any problems at all. They were like, \u2018Oh, we\u2019re not poor,\u2019 and it\u2019s like, \u2018No, you\u2019re not poor. We were, but you\u2019re not,\u2019\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n While growing up, though, Williams said her parents worked hard for her and her sisters and that others in their community pitched in as well.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople provided a lot of support to our family because they knew we\u2019re a family of six, and my parents were trying very hard to give us whatever they could, so folks wanted to help that along,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n That same kind of support she now provides for students in Birmingham City Schools.<\/p>\n Birmingham Promise provides up to four years of tuition assistance for graduates of Birmingham City Schools who attend public colleges and universities in Alabama. It also manages an internship program that allows high school seniors to build valuable work experience while earning money and gaining academic credit.<\/em><\/p>\n For more information on Birmingham Promise, visit <\/em>http:\/\/www.birminghampromise.org\/<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n