9780813070100

9780813069326

"The life and accomplishments of an influential leader in the desegregated South This biography of educational activist and Black studies pioneer Bertha Maxwell-Roddey examines a life of remarkable achievements and leadership in the early years of the desegregated South. Sonya Ramsey modernizes the nineteenth-century term "race woman" to describe how Maxwell-Roddey and her peers turned hard-won civil rights and feminist milestones into tangible accomplishments in North Carolina and nationwide from the late 1960s to the 1990s.Born in 1930, Maxwell-Roddey became one of Charlotte's first Black woman principals of a white elementary school; she was the founding director of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte's Africana Studies Program; and she cofounded the Afro-American Cultural and Service Center, now the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Art Culture. Maxwell-Roddey founded the National Council for Black Studies, helping institutionalize the field with what is still its premiere professional organization, and served as the 20th National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., one of the most influential Black women's organizations in the United States. Using oral histories and primary sources that include private records from numerous Black women's home archives, Ramsey illuminates the intersectional leadership strategies used by Maxwell-Roddey and other modern race women to dismantle discriminatory barriers in the classroom and the boardroom. Bertha Maxwell-Roddey offers new insights into desegregation, urban renewal, and the rise of the Black middle class through the lens of a powerful leader's life story"-- Provided by publisher.

"This biography of educational activist and Black studies pioneer Bertha Maxwell-Roddey examines a life of remarkable achievements and leadership in the early years of the desegregated South. Sonya Ramsey describes how Maxwell-Roddey and her peers turned hard-won civil rights and feminist milestones into tangible accomplishments in North Carolina and nationwide from the late 1960s to the 1990s"-- Provided by publisher.

A "Big Mind," Childhood, and Early Beginnings

"It Was Like Putting Diapers on Gnats"

Planting the Seed

Aluta Continua! The Struggle Continues!: Looking Outward to Strengthen Within

Retrieving What Was Lost, Building New Beginnings

Charlotte's Afro-American Cultural Center: And the Rise Of The New South, Post-Soul City

What does it mean to be a Delta?

Bertha's Girls and the Dimensions of a Political Sisterhood

Conclusion: I Am Because We Are.

University of North Carolina at Charlotte > Faculty > Biography.

African American women > Education (Higher)

African American women > Education (Higher) > Biography.

Discrimination in higher education > North Carolina > Charlotte > History.

African American women teachers > North Carolina > Charlotte > Biography.

African American college teachers > North Carolina > Charlotte > Biography.

African American women college teachers > North Carolina > Charlotte > Biography.

North Carolina > Charlotte.

History.

Biographies.