Description

This biography of educational activist and Black studies forerunner Bertha MaxwellRoddey examines a life of remarkable achievements and leadership in the desegregated South Sonya Ramsey modernizes the nineteenthcentury term race woman to describe how MaxwellRoddey and her peers turned hardwon civil rights and feminist milestones into tangible accomplishments in North Carolina and nationwide from the late 1960s to the 1990s

Born in 1930 MaxwellRoddey became one of Charlottes first Black women principals of a white elementary school she was the founding director of the University of North Carolina at Charlottes Africana Studies Department and she cofounded the AfroAmerican Cultural and Service Center MaxwellRoddey founded the National Council for Black Studies and served as the twentieth National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc one of the most influential Black womens organizations in the United States

Ramsey illuminates the intersectional leadership strategies used by MaxwellRoddey and other modern race women to dismantle discriminatory barriers in the classroom and the boardroom Bertha MaxwellRoddey offers new insights into desegregation urban renewal and the rise of the Black middle class through the lens of a powerful leaders life story