| Elisabeth Williams- Omilami | |
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Elisabeth Omilami |
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| Born | February 18, 1951 Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Other names | Elisabeth Omilami, Elizabeth Omilami, Elisabeth Williams- Omilami |
| Occupation | Non- Profit Director of Hosea Feed The Hungry and Homeless, successing her father, Hosea Williams after posthumously. |
| Organization | Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless |
| Influenced by | Fannie Lou Hamer, Juanita Terry Williams, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Hosea Williams, Woodrow Walker, Afemo Omilami, Patrise Perkins-Hooker, Dr. Barbara Emerson, Awodele and Juanita Omilami |
| Political movement | Arts, International Missions, Poverty Rights, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Malnutrition, Homelessness and Peace Movement |
| Religion | Christian |
| Spouse | Afemo Omilami |
| Children | son, Awodele daughter, Juanita |
| Parents | Hosea L. and Juanita T. Williams |
Elisabeth Williams-Omilami (born February 18, 1951) is an African-American human rights activist and an actress, a writer and a Pastor while being the voice of the less fortunate at Hosea Feed the Hungry.
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She was born in Atlanta, the daughter of activist Hosea Williams and State Representative Juanita T. Williams. Her young life was spent within the confines of the Civil Rights movements of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. After graduating from college she created the People's Survival Theatre and that company produced a season of five shows per year where Omilami acted, directed,wrote and did whatever was necessary to get the plays produced. She is credited with giving many professional actors their first jobs including Bill Nunn, Afemo Omilami and the late Carol Mitchell Leon. People's Survival Theatre continued to produce shows long after Elisabeth's journey to New York City when her husband Afemo scholarship to New York University. In New York Elisabeth worked as Arts Administrator and Executive Assistant to many Arts luminries: Woody King, Rosetta Leniore and Melvin Van Peebles. She directed,acted as much as she could supporting her family as her husbands career grew. Her son Awodele was born while she was working in New York, however New York is a "hard place to raise a child" and after she became pregnant with her daughter Juanita in 1985 she left New York to return to Atlanta where she lives today. While in Atlanta she continued to perform on stage and in film and television . Some of her favorite parts were shows that told stories she knew all too well from the racist South. Omilami is a graduate of Hampton University and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre.
I'm on the battlefield for the Lord
— Elisabeth Omilami[1]
At an early age, Omilami's parents taught her that people should be accountable for each other, for their environment and should fight for justice for all people. As a young girl, she accompanied her father on marches and movements across the South. During the height of the Civil Rights Movement, after having the distinction of being one of the youngest people arrested in the fight for civil rights, Omilami had t be sent off to boarding school. It was Wasatch Academy in Utah where she was the only black and she was often asked to recount the stories of her childhood. She also has the distinction of being the first African American woman in seventy-five years to spend the night in the Forsyth County jail during a march in January 1981.
Omilami had also worked for over 15 years in the background of her father's Hosea Feed The Hungry and Homeless efforts,[2] and upon his passing in November 2000 became the organization's CEO, expanding the organization from a budget of $200,000 to over 1,5 million working to provide programs meeting the basic needs of the working poor and homeless along a continuum of care leading to self-sufficiency expanding from four months to year-round human services and feeding and providing medical clinics, clothing distribution, barber and beautician services, children's educational programs, and home delivery of over 22,000 dinners per year through producing events on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Easter Sunday. She is has also spoken and toured worldwide for several international relief efforts in places like the Philippines where she has founded and operates a school for the underprivileged children of Mindanou and sponsoring orphanages in Haiti and Uganda.
Omilami's acknowledgments for humanitarian service includes: A Georgia State Senate Resolution in recognition of her Community Service, Atlanta Business League 100 Women of Influence, For Sisters Only, Women In Film Humanitarian Award, Secretary of State of the State of Georgia Outstanding Citizen, State of Georgia Goodwill Ambassador, YWCA Women of Achievement Academy, Burger King Urban Everyday Heroes, Kraft Community Service; SCLC Women Drum Major for Justice, T. D. Jakes Phenomenal Woman, Daughters of Isis Community Service Award, the Emory University M.L.K. Community Service Award and The National Conference of Black Mayors Fannie Lou Hamer Unsung Heroine Award. She has traveled to many parts of the world with her husband Afemo and children Awodele and Juanita to conduct missions work including Haiti, where she distributed medicines and food, Kenya, South Africa, The Philippines, where she has founded a school and still supports it today. Her dream is to find sustainable funding for Hosea Feed The Hungry, so they can create an endowment that will fund the much needed work of this non-profit. She needs to find external sources of funding, international ones, so that this work will not die due to a lack of funds from American sources. She notes, "A hungry child cannot learn", and asks "How can you preach the gospel to a man whose whole existence is focused upon a desperate desire to live and feed his family?"
Omilami founded of one of Atlanta's earliest theatre companies People's Survival Theater, as well as the "Summer Artscamp", providing arts programming for economically challenged youth for over 7 years. She is a playwright has written several plays, one of which is There Is A River In My Soul. She is a past member of both the Georgia Council For The Arts and the Fulton County Arts Council and is a passionate advocate for the arts to be instituted as permanent part of society. She is an accomplished actress and has performed at the Alliance Theatre in A Christmas Carol and in early 2002 in Left Hand Singing at the Jewish Theatre of The South. She can also be seen in the HBO made for television movie Boycott and will be remembered by fans of both In the Heat of the Night and the award winning I'll Fly Away.
She is the wife of actor Afemo Omilami, Co-Director of Hosea's Feed The Hungry and Homeless, and has two children - son Awodele and daughter Juanita. She is a member of Abundant Life Church in Lithonia, where her Pastor is Rev. Woodrow Walker, II. She is looking for that balance between married and ministry and she is blessed that her husband joins her in both! They are active members of the Prison, Missions and Drama Ministries at Abundant Life Church.
Quote Elisabeth Omilami:
We can raise the consciousness of the people and really make a difference over the next 40 days. I know a fast is a private discipline between the believer and God, or it can be done for health reasons. This is not the fast that we choose. We choose to feed the hungry. This is not a private fast this is a corporate call to action designed to get attention. Attention for those who are forgotten after the holidays, those thousands we see year-round at our offices for rent assistance food and clothing, those we feed weekly at outdoor camps and indoor ghettos right here in Atlanta, and those around the State that we serve through partnerships with other organizations meeting the needs with our help. What better time than during one of the holiest times of the year for humble servants to do their reasonable service. The prophetic, our ability to speak truth to power, to know the times and see Gods hand in the earth; will only come from our prayer life. So we are asking Atlanta to pray for us as they help us serve God's people. The prophetic life is a product of prayer, and when we see the people on Easter the whole dinner is one great prayer Oh Lord bring us together to know the true value of life the human soul.
— [1]