Having Our Say:The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (1993)
Sarah Louise "Sadie" (age 103 at time of writing) and Elizabeth "Bessie" (101) are two of the older siblings among a highly accomplished family of ten African-American children [though they use only the terms "colored" and "Negro" to describe themselves.] Their father, Henry Delany, is an Episcopal bishop and priest at St Augustine (Historically Black) College in Raleigh. Their mother, Nanny James Logan, whose ancestors are mostly white, raises the children on the campus, where they get a good education and good values. Both Sadie and Bessie go on to earn degrees at Columbia University - Sadie as a teacher and Bessie as a dentist (their siblings included another dentist, a doctor, piano teacher [trained at Julliard] and a judge). All of the siblings, except Lemuel who practiced medicine in Raleigh, ended up living in Harlem at the hight of the Harlem renaissance. Their circle of friends included Cab Calloway, Marian Anderson, and Ethel Waters, among others Though they relate incidents where they were mistreated, they write without rancor. But they do note that, if you are colored, everyone is aways looking for your faults. You have to be "entirely honest, clean, brilliant and so on. Because if you slip up once, the white folks say to each other, 'See, what'd I tell you?'"
On one occasion, the sisters argue about the prospect of a Negro president. Sadie thinks there will be - but Bessie doesn't think it could happen for 1000 years!
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