Williams was founder and president of the Phillis Wheatley Club, a prominent organization for black women in New Orleans. The club sponsored a nursing school, a hospital, and a free clinic for African-Americans in New Orleans;"A Hospital for Negroes" Wilkes-Barre Times Leader (November 5, 1896): 3. via Newspapers.com they also conducted sewing bees to make clothing for orphans."To Aid the Little Orphans" The Times-Picayune (September 17, 1900): 12. via Newspapers.com She was also active in creating the first public playground for African-American children in New Orleans. A writer in her lifetime called Sylvanie Williams "a fine example of the resourcefulness and noble influence that a cultivated woman can and will give to the uplift of her race."John William Gibson, The Colored American from Slavery to Honorable Citizenship (J. L. Nichols & Company 1903): 207. She was a vice-president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACW) when it was founded in 1896."Colored Women's Association" Daily Commercial Herald (July 23, 1896): 2. via Newspapers.com
