Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years

In their 200+ combined years, Sadie and Bessie Delany have seen it all. They saw their father, who was born into slavery, become America's first black Episcopal bishop. They saw their mother—a woman of mixed racial parentage who was born free—give birth to ten children, all of whom would become college-educated, successful professionals in a time when blacks could scarcely expect to receive a high school diploma. They saw the post-Reconstruction South, the Jim Crow laws, Harlem's Golden Age, and the Civil Rights movement—and, in their own feisty, wise, inimitable way, they've got a lot to say about it.

More than a firsthand account of black American history, Having Our Say teaches us about surviving, thriving, and embracing life, no matter what obstacles are in our way.