Having our Say
The Delany Sisters’ first 100 Years
Warm, feisty, and intelligent, the Delany sisters speak their mind in a book that is at once a vital historical record and a moving portrait of two remarkable women who continued to love, laugh, and embrace life after over a hundred years of living side by side.
Their sharp memories show us the post-Reconstruction South and Booker T. Washington; Harlem’s Golden Age and Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Paul Robeson. Bessie breaks barriers to become a dentist; Sadie quietly integrates the New York City system as a high school teacher. Their extraordinary story makes an important contribution to our nation’s heritage–and an indelible impression on our lives.
Key Words/Themes
African American History, Social Change and Civil Rights, Resilience and Perseverance, Education and Self-empowerment, Gender and Women's Roles, Family and Heritage, Spirituality and Faith.
Book Review & Recommended Use in Classroom
In this autobiographical narrative two women share how they became more and more aware of the omnipresent everyday discrimination of white people against their Black neighbours. The book gives an impressive account of two strong women who find their ways to live independent lives despite society’s double discrimination against Black women. At the same time historical events and important Black artists and politicians become alive as well.
Descriptive style and language are readable and understandable in class 10 where I used parts of the autobiographical narrative in the context of exploring US American history. Excerpts from the book helped to make the time after 1876 come alive through the authentic accounts of two Black women.
(Ulrike, April 2025)
Sensitive Content
The book contains just a few descriptions of drastic violence which can easily be left out.
About the Authors
Sarah L. Delany and Dr. Elizabeth Delany were born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on the campus of St. Augustine’s College. Their father, born into slavery and freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, was an administrator at the college and America’s first elected black Episcopal bishop. Sarah received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Teachers College at Columbia University and was New York City’s first appointed black home economics teacher on the high school level. Elizabeth received her Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from Columbia University in 1923 and was the second black woman licensed to practice dentistry in New York. Dr. Elizabeth Delany died in September 1995, at the age of 104. Sarah Delany died in January 1999, at the age of 109.
Source: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/45319/a-elizabeth-delany/
