Dr. Angela Graham-Williams Has Always Outreached, Will Combat HIV & AIDS in Southern Africa

Above: Dr. Angela Graham-Williams [PHOTO: COURTESY]; [PHOTO: GLOW Eswatini Facebook]

Written by William Bryant Rozier

Fort Wayne native Dr. Angela Graham-Williams is an easy interview.  I asked one, innocuous question and Grahams-Williams provided answers for not just my question but also for a couple of different questions I didn’t even know were on the table.  They were the type of answers one gets from an experienced interviewee, but also from someone who has an ingrained sense of self, knows where all of her intrinsic values have come from and from whom.

Her grandfather, Dr. James Graham Sr., owned a private practice for families and visited patients on the day he passed away.  Her other grandfather was Bill Files, who famously owned a barber shop on South Anthony Blvd. 

Graham-Williams was close with both of them; she would still crawl in their laps when she was in her 30s. “You can have intimate close relationships, but they could also call you to task,” she said.  She spent her formative years in Alabama, where her father, James Graham Jr. served as the President/CEO of the Greater Birmingham Urban League.  “I personally saw my father march, fight and advocate for people that looked like me,” she said.  “I remember conversations at the table at family gatherings.”  The conversations would turn to the young folks; they would be asked, she said, “what are you going to do with your life and how you were going to make a difference?” 

And you know somebody pointed a finger at her.  “I feel like black professionals, the best, the brightest, want to go to Wall Street and Silicon Valley but how many are going to work with our people on a grass root level?”

She listened well and overachieved, went on to get a bachelor’s in psychology from Spelman University, a master’s in counseling from Western Michigan and a doctorate in psychology from Sofia University out of Palo Alto, California.  She’s taught at the college level, she’s launched organizations, and has developed curriculum.  Her impressive resume on paper hides how vast her work with at-risk youth has been.  And that includes a launch of a dance studio to train young urban youth in the classical and performing arts.  (A resident of Michigan, she resides in Kalamazoo.)

Grahams-Williams, the grassroots advocate for youth, has accepted a position as a federal consultant in Eswatini, Africa, formerly known as Swaziland, the Southern African country that has the highest prevalence of HIV/Aids in the developed world.  One out of every five residents has AIDS in the country.  The lack of education and advocacy, not a lack of hospitals and health care facilities, are the culprit.  “Most girls are pregnant by age 18 and are HIV positive by 24,” Grahams-Williams said, who also noted the difficulty of having conversations with men about the diseases.

For nine months, starting December 1, 2019, she’ll be working for GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) as a National Capacity Building Specialist.  GLOW is a global project initiated by Peace Corps volunteers and local counterparts to empower young girls and improve the status of women around the world.  GLOW Eswatini was established in 2010.  “The closest example [in this country] would be the Boys and Girls Club,” she said.  Since education and advocacy are most needed, Grahams-Williams was hired to oversee the training counselors, the production and producing of training manuals, self-esteem and sex education classes for 88 GLOW locations across the nation. 

It’s a position that she almost didn’t apply for and only did it on a whim because she couldn’t sleep.  “It’s a huge blessing,” Grahams-Williams said about the opportunity she was uniquely qualified for.