One of the most consequential of those parallels is the importance our families placed on education, and the examples they set. I had my mother and aunts, not to mention a host of uncles and siblings who made their own marks in the academy, civil rights activism, and the pulpit. Each generation had a hand in desegregating institutions, schools, programs, and classrooms.
Sadie's aunt was Hallie Tanner Dillon Johnson, the first female physician to practice in Alabama and the founder of the Tuskegee nursing school. Her father was the first African American man to graduate from Penn law school, and her uncle held the same distinction at Penn's medical school.