Pastor, former Elmont Board of Education member dies at 87

The Rev. Kenneth Williams, a once-constant presence at the Dutch Broadway School and a calming voice on the Elmont Board of Education, died of a stroke on Dec. 16, at age 87.

Williams was born to Caribbean immigrants in Harlem in 1933, and grew up with five siblings, three sisters and two brothers. He attended Morris High School in the Bronx, and studied at Monroe Business School and the City College School of Business Administration, before becoming a “do-it-all” employee for American Airlines, he told Newsday in a 2003 article on the Elmont school board election.

In the 1980s he helped his brother, Ezra, then a pastor at Bethel Gospel Assembly in Harlem, find a new building for his congregation. The church’s membership was growing exponentially at the time, Louis A. DeCaro recounted in his book, “A Shepherd in Harlem: The Life and Times of Ezra Williams,” which Ezra tried to accommodate by adding more seating options, but any mention of buying a new church was rejected by the older members.

Eventually, the church leadership bought the nearby shuttered Public School 120, the old Cooper Junior High School, in an auction, but it needed many repairs before it could open to the public. Then, one day when Kenneth was looking at a downtown storefront, he struck up a conversation with the proprietor, and mentioned all the work he and his brother needed to do to the old school to turn it into a church. The man told him to get in contact with John D’Eletto, a general contractor from New Jersey. He did, and D’Eletto, a devout Catholic, made it his mission to fix up the building, even spending some of his own money to do so.

The church soon fell behind on payments, however, and as Kenneth recounted in DeCaro’s book, he worried about what he and his brother would tell their new friend. But when they met to discuss the matter over dinner, D’Eletto assured them that he would not stop working. In fact, he told them he would advance them a loan so that Bethel could meet its payments, and they would square away their accounts later.

The church, which sits across from Marcus Garvey Park, has since become a full-service place of worship, with after-school programs and Bible study classes, and was led until 1999 by Bishop Ezra Williams and the Rev. Kenneth Williams.

“His invaluable service to the work of the Lord at Bethel Gospel Assembly will forever be etched in our hearts,” church officials wrote about Kenneth in a Facebook post on Dec. 18. “We pray for his entire family and all of his loved ones.”

Kenneth Williams moved to Elmont in the mid-1990s, where he raised two children, Kim and Corey, with his ex-wife, and where he served on the school board from 1997 to 2006. Though he never served as president, during his tenure, he ensured that all board policies enhanced learning, and that the right people were hired for the right roles, according to his friends Aubrey Phillips and Carol Parker.

“Ken believed in leadership by example,” Phillips, who served with him on the school board, wrote in a Facebook post on Dec. 16, after hearing of his death. Kenneth was a member of the National Black Council of School Board Members, and wanted to rewrite the narrative of what a minority school district could do.

In fact, Phillips told the Herald, when he and Williams would talk about the Elmont School District’s successes at state and national school board conventions, people “would look at us like we had five heads.” But, Phillips said, “We expected our administration to do its job, and it did.”

Williams was a calming voice on the school board during a tumultuous time. It had been reported in 2004 that Roslyn school officials had embezzled money from the district, and to prevent something like that from happening in Elmont, Williams encourage his colleagues on the board to undergo training for their roles. By the time the New York State School Boards Association made board trustee training a requirement in 2005, five of the seven members of the Elmont board met the criteria for certification.

“He honestly led our school district so that, when that mandate came out, very few of us needed to take the classes,” Phillips recounted.

Williams attended several National School Boards Association conferences, and once even stopped by a school where a shooting had recently taken place. “You would not believe he wasn’t one of the locals,” Phillips said of the way Williams interacted with the mourners. “He spoke to people and he comforted people.”

“He really understood people in a way that I thought was remarkable,” Phillips added, and recalled how he and Williams once went to a jazz club, and Williams remarked that while the singer had a great voice, “‘she hasn’t lived what she was singing.’”

“There was always a nature of peace that surrounded him,” said Carol Parker, a former Dutch Broadway PTA member who used to drop her children off at school at the same time as Williams. He was a friendly face around the school, according to Leonitha Francis, who was a sixth- and seventh-grade classmate of Williams’s son, Corey. She said she always felt comfortable around the elder Williams, describing him as “a compassionate giant.”

He once told Francis that she should have told him she didn’t have a ride to a birthday party of Corey’s, and added, “Any time you need anything, let me know.”

Williams was predeceased by his parents, Livingstone and Gertrude; sisters Jestina, Geraldine and Ruth; and brothers Ezra and Benjamin. He is survived by his children, Kim and Corey.