Pastor Sylvester Williams is a native of Durham, North Carolina. He is an Investment Analyst in Raleigh. He is married to Barbara Tanner Williams. The couple has one son, Diya, who is a graduate of Wake Forest University and is a high school principal in Winston Salem, NC; two daughters, Adande who is a graduate of North Carolina State University and is CEO of A.N.D. Consulting, Inc. and Nanyamka who is a graduate of North Carolina Central University and is pursuing her Master’s in Nursing; one daughter-in-law, Anada, and three grandchildren, Josiah, Anaya, and Diya II. This dedicated husband, father and grandfather graduated from Devry Institute and
DurhamTechnicalCommunity College, where he earned degrees in Accounting and Business Administration.
In addition to serving as founding Pastor of The Assembly at Durham Christian Center, he is known to many local residents for his weekly radio ministry ‘Christian Perspective’. He has served on the Board of Directors for Durham for Jesus Ministries; does Outreach with Meals on Wheels in Raleigh and Ellison’s Rest Home in Durham; as well as Prison Ministry at C.A. Dillon Youth Detention Center in Butner; Tent Revivalist, in the Raleigh-Durham and New York areas and several international conferences in India and the Philippines.
As President of Hayestown Community in East Durham,Pastor Williams has spoken up about public affairs from time to time. He has been proactive concerning the proposed East End Connector -- a highway project that would link the Durham Freeway and US 70 on the grounds that it would displace a predominantly black neighborhood without considering the environmental consequences. In the late 1990s, he urged the Durham Public School System to remove discriminatory text books from the curriculum.
Durham County; the Mayor's Advisory Board for Gang Violence in Durham County; and the Ad-hoc Committee for the East End Connector for the City of Durham.
