When I went to college initially I was a chemistry pre-med major. I took an African American history course as an elective. I didn’t know anything about African American studies, I think that first course was the basic African American history. Three or four weeks into that course, I realized that African Americans really had an extensive history here in this country outside of slavery, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X. Midway into that course, I became infuriated that I had not known the depths of my history and was not taught that growing up in an inner city, even with a mom who’s an English teacher; we had some exposure, but not a lot.  I knew that I would go to medical school, and I decided at that point to change my major from chemistry and become an African African-American studies major. I continued with pre-med obviously to make sure I did all of my sciences, but that was the moment the breadth and depth of my history-- not only from an African American perspective, but also from an African perspective— became an important to me. That made a significant difference in my life, in the way I viewed my culture and the people surrounding me.

I was contemplating wearing my grandmother’s hat. My grandmother died 4 years ago. I don’t necessarily wear her hat-- it just it sits there, reminding me of her love. So when I feel a certain way, and I want to wear her hat, I know I’m honoring her when I wear it. Wearing hats to funerals and to church services is symbolic in our culture, and that’s usually when I wear mine. This hat does not have any true special significance. I saw the hat, it was beautiful, and I had to have it. The one thing I remember about this hat was that I bought for a mother-daughter tea, but I initially wore it to a friend’s husband’s funeral. She had asked all the ladies to wear hats. So every time I remember this hat it takes me back to that day. I felt regal and proud to be able to support her in that manner and to be able to wear the hat as a symbol of our love for her. Even though it was a hard time for her, he was in his 40s when he passed away, we knew that we were standing in solidarity. We let her know that we were there in support of her. So that’s one of my fondest memories about this hat-- I just loved the hat. So, no real significant meaning in purchasing, but it meant a lot to me to be able to support her in that way- honoring his memory. Every time I wear that hat I remember her, I remember her husband, and I remember that day-- it takes me back.

I came from a very close family.  My mother is one of eleven. I knew all my mother’s sisters and they gave me strength, courage, perseverance, and instilled on me that I could be anything that I wanted to be.  Whatever we wanted to achieve, we were able to do it.

Going to church I would see all the hats.   As I was coming up, you know, I’d have the little hat framing my face with the ribbon underneath.  And then, as I got older, they got a little fancier. By the time I was in my teens, I didn’t go to church without a hat on. Right up until I moved away, I was still wearing a hat to church. It was once I moved away and started my own journey in my life that I got away from hats. I was still wearing a hat, but the hats turned into baseball hats.  Whenever I went out, went to sports, went to the beach, I was still wearing some type of hat orscarf, some type of wrapping on my head.

I think everybody just loves a hat. Everybody just loves some hat, but it’s just a matter of finding their hat.  And their style of hat.  You know, somebody’s hat may be just a tam, but that tam may have a lot of meaning to them. Could be that it’s the only type of style they think they look good in, it could be because they went to France and they bought it there, so that was their keepsake. A hat is personal.

Most of the time now I either have some type of scarf or my head is wrapped in African cloth. But today I brought my gele. I bought this particular gele as a memory of my sister. My baby sister died in October, very young. She was an Evangelist and she always wore her church hat. So, in honor of my baby sister, I wore this hat at her funeral service. My sister’s favorite color was purple and so I thought it was just right. I felt it was good to wear it today. It gave me another opportunity to wear it in her honor. You know, if my baby sister were here to take a picture she would have a hat like this. And probably give you a sermon to go along with it. I also wore this gele to represent my beloved aunt, Mrs. Kathleen Montgomery-Edwards, who always wore a hat.

I think it’s important to start by saying I’m the youngest child of nine children. And there are seven girls. My mother is from a family of many girls. I always grew up around a lot of women who really instilled this idea of being your own woman, and being able to in your own right feel your own worth. I had all these great aunties who lived in New York. All these women migrated not to marry. All these sisters migrated to Manhattan to actually go to work. They had different jobs and they were really supporting themselves. They all ended up marrying, but they were one after the other moving into Manhattan to strike out as women, and to create opportunities for themselves.

When I was ten years old my mother and I flew to New York to be with all her sisters. It was like I was being handed around! I got to know my aunts then. My aunts were really so different. They had this community, and they seemed to be the central figure in their communities in so many ways. As the youngest of all these series of Black women it never escaped me. There was just a lot of power in Black women.

My mother had me when she was forty-two years old. There are twenty-two years between my oldest brother and me. We spanned a lot of time. When I was at Mount Holyoke I would go spend whatever time with one or the other of them during vacations. They were all very different, but accomplished. Like my aunt, Hulda Rutherford, I spent a lot of time with. She was a nutritionist in Manhattan.

This was her story-- and I tell ya there was a lot of hyperbole involved. She was a good seamstress. This was true--she was always all of her life a very good seamstress and sewed many of her own clothes. She will tell you that she went down into the Fashion District and because she had a PERFECT size eight. This is where the story falls apart. She became a model that they measured clothes on. For her it was sort of breaking a racial barrier. It was okay to be a seamstress, but they wouldn’t want you to try on the clothes or anything like that. Yet, she became one in one of the fashion houses. I do believe she was a seamstress, but I don’t know if she was model. She was always interested in body and nutrition. Then she started to work in the public school system as a nutritionist.

They had created their own community and my mother was really the outlier in this. She married my father. He was in the air force, and so we moved around quite a bit. Never settled in New York the way the rest of her sisters had. We ended up in California.

They would get together and there was cooking. I have an aunt, and they’re Southern so it was like Aunt Annie May. She had the smallest New York apartment ever. She hosted Sunday dinners all the time. You might start off with four people, but people would just start flowing in! The other thing I learned about them was this opening to community. I really experienced that with my mother. When we were in the air force we traveled quite a bit. We lived in Pakistan for two and a half years. We’d go down off the air force base and go meeting people. Then we’d have these big parties. My mother always had that openness. It was about creating community and being part of a community.

My family were big hat wearers. My mother had a lot of hats. When my mother did pass away we all wore one of her hats to the funeral. We have this great photo of all of us daughters in one of her hats. Hats have been a part of our lives because we went to church and my mother wore hats to church. Us as kids we never really picked that up.

My hats, ironically, are not related to that or church, but Saratoga Springs Horse Racing. I actually didn’t start buying hats for myself until I got to Saratoga Springs. Women wear hats there! I bought this from an African American woman who makes hats. I just love the color orange. I just love this color.

I went to an all-Black school until the eighth grade. I went to Princeton High School. I graduated in 1945. I took a commercial course. One teacher told me, I remember it so well, that I should not take the course because no one would ever hire a colored person as a secretary. I retired as a secretary. I was a great typist. A great typist. I don't know how fast, I just speeded along! Then, I took a job at the university. In fact, Bill Lockwood's father was responsible for getting me a job at the university, at the time they weren't hiring any Black clerks. I was one of the first in the line of Black clerks hired at Princeton University as a key punch operator. You probably don't even know what a key punch operator is! It was a fore runner to the computer. I worked in the registrar's office at that time. It was an all-male school. That was my job, and I stayed for nine years!

Then I got a few other jobs. Always a step up. I retired from Princeton Bank and Trust Company. That wasn't enough for me because it was too early! So I took a few courses in early childcare and became an aide at The Waldorf School of Princeton for nine years. It was very rewarding, oh it was. Some of those kids I still keep in touch with today. I went to a couple weddings, and yeah. It was nice.

I don't have many hats, maybe four or five. I had one big one that I purchased years ago. I never give up trying, but like I say, every time I go to the mirror and put that hat on, that mirror says, "No. You're too short." Really! With this hat? I tell you the truth, I love this hat. I don't know who smiles first: me or the mirror. The mirror says, "okay." And I say thank you! Really, I love this.

I grew up in Princeton. I spent most of my formative years and adulthood in Princeton, until probably about fourteen years ago. I am now seventy, so except for three and a half or four years of my life, I lived in Princeton or in close proximity. I say this to put in perspective my experience with racism and segregation.  Princeton, even though it’s a small town, I think it’s somewhat different than other small communities, in the sense that the John Witherspoon neighborhood was very insular. I grew up during a time when the university was a male institution. It wasn’t co-educational, I mean male and female, until 1969. So I was an adult. My mother and all of her sisters were very, very close. I’ve never seen siblings as close as they are. Only one of them did not live [in Princeton]. Well I should say two maybe; one lived in Hightstown, one moved to Rhode Island with a family that she worked for. Of the seven girls, six of them basically lived in Princeton, so they had to talk to each other every day.  I don’t remember my grandmother at all and my grandfather died when I was a senior in high school—but my mother’s and my grandparents’ generations, did not talk about their experiences in the South.  My mother came to Princeton when she was five years old. So for all intents and purposes Princeton is all she remembered. In school, they did not teach you African American history. The year I was born was the year they prohibited segregation in the New Jersey school systems. So by the time I started kindergarten in 1952, the schools were already integrated. The neighborhood that I grew up in, even though it has never been completely African American, was insular in the sense that they didn’t allow, at least girls—I don’t remember about my brother, he’s a year younger than I am—they didn’t let us wander uptown. What we call Nassau Street: Uptown.  Unless you had business uptown and I was accompanied by an adult. Except for attending the Nassau Street Elementary School, I went shopping with my godmother. You couldn’t go [alone]. I lived on the block of John Street, between Quarry and Maclean Street. You could not go beyond a block to visit somebody else. You’d see them in church. Outside of family, you didn’t do a lot of visiting. I’m saying all of this because as I said, my maternal grandmother and my mother’s generations — they didn’t talk about their experiences with segregation. My father’s family moved to Long Branch, New Jersey when he was maybe 1? I think he was 1. So it was in the late 20’s. It was around the same time my mother and her family moved to New Jersey. I didn’t have relatives that I was aware of in the South. In the summertime a lot of kids would go south to visit their relatives. I never had that. I stayed in Princeton. So, I don’t think I ever consciously thought about myself as less than somebody else. I don’t remember consciously … the schools weren’t segregated … the neighborhood wasn’t segregated. As an adult thinking back, in retrospect, since they didn’t let us wander places, it wasn’t like we were necessarily aware of “You’re not allowed to go there.” I realized it as an adult. And that’s why they didn’t let us just wander around. But, now I think boys were different. You know? It was a lot different. I can remember my mother and my godmother saying—and I interchanged the two because both of them were my parents—“You have no business on the university because it’s all boys. And a girl doesn’t have any business up there.” Now, my husband, who is three years younger than me, he says that he and his friends used to go on campus. They’d sneak on the campus for games and activities like that, but it wasn’t like his parents told him he couldn’t go there. That’s why I’m saying you have to look at Princeton a little bit differently than other communities.  He attended one of the historically black universities –– and a lot of his classmates said how could he have gone to school with all those white people? He didn’t know any different. I didn’t know any different. I went to some classmate’s homes — not all — some classmates’ birthday parties and things like that. In the neighborhood, we played in each other’s houses.  So, I don’t think I actually sensed a difference. I mean, I know there was a difference, but I don’t know if I actually sensed a difference. School didn’t teach African American history, other than blacks were slaves. Of course, then we were colored or Negro. So it wasn’t until I was an adult that I found out a lot of history, significant history, about African Americans. I think that made me more proud of who I am. But as I said, I don’t consciously think that I thought of myself as less than anyone else. I think as I’ve gotten older, and learned more, or become more aware of African American history, and the racism that’s alive and well in the United States of America …I think it’s a shame…it’s a shameful past that we—the country, when I say we—have had. But I don’t think that I have thought of it in terms of this is a niche for you, and you can’t go any further. I sent my daughter, who’s thirty seven, the question that you were going to ask me, and she said “Wow, that’s a hard question –– I can’t say I ever didn’t know I had a history and culture, you and Daddy made that very clear my whole life.  And that I was just as good as anyone not better, maybe just better circumstances.” I felt it important that she know this, but I can’t say if I was in my thirties or forties.

[On her mother, Kathleen Montgomery Edwards, “Kappy”, a Princeton woman known for her hats]

My mother [Kathleen Montgomery Edwards] wore hats all the time not just on Sunday.  When she passed, her house was filled with hats. All kinds. She was known for her hats. She was also legendary in the community because of her community activism.  She was the first African American female to serve on the Princeton Board of Education.  Having been a federal employee, she was prohibited from running for political office by the Hatch Act.  She was a neighborhood advocate, pushing for African American rights. There are people just enough older than me to remember when the Y was segregated. I don’t remember that, and I probably should but when you’re like nine or ten years old you don’t necessarily pay attention to those kind of things. You don’t pay attention to places that you’re not allowed to go unless somebody says specifically to you, you can’t go there.

The African American neighborhood in Princeton had all the services that you could think of or required: barber shops, beauty parlors, restaurants, all of that. So it wasn’t like we were deprived. Church-wise, I guess the only really bad experience I had, and I don’t know that I consciously thought of it as because I was black necessarily… We’re Episcopalian. My mother was brought up Baptist, but my father’s family was Episcopalian. So we went to Trinity Church. In my particular age group, I was the only black person. It was never really a comfortable situation for me because of that. That’s why I don’t go to church to this day, but I don’t think about switching to some other religion either –– and especially when my mother was alive.  If I had converted to some other religion, she would have been most unhappy.

She went to both the Episcopal and Baptist churches. Once she married my father, she converted to Episcopalian. So I don’t know. I don’t know how to answer that question, really. Even when I went to work and I worked for the State of New Jersey for a year, during the height of some of the riots. Many of the people I worked with were always trying to show me how prejudice they weren’t. You know how people will say to you, “Oh, I live next door to black people.” That kind of stuff. That always gets me. Especially since they don’t know their names and they don’t socialize. They just live next to each other. Trenton, of course, had riots also. So my thing was I live in Princeton. I do not live in Trenton. So do not put me in the same pot kind of thing. Which to some degree is stupid because Princeton never had riots. So, I have no experience with it, other than watching it on TV. I never could understand what we as human beings did or do to each other.  Because we’re all the same. We all come into the world the same way and we’re going to go out the same way. We’re different colors, yes I can see that, but to focus on that seems counterproductive.

[On what happened to Kappy’s hats after she passed]

We gave them away while cleaning out her house. Various people took them. Took a great many of them to First Baptist Church.

[On her hat]

I’m not a hat person. The only reason I have that is because I belong to a Red Hat Society group. I brought this one to go to a Red Hat Society function.

It’s called Jazzy Divas of Princeton, New Jersey. All of us grew up in Princeton, basically in the John Witherspoon neighborhood. We get together once a month. We call them gatherings, except the months we have actual meetings and have various activities things. We had gone to several actual Red Hat Society events in Pennsylvania.  I had to buy a hat for those events.  I’m not into red and purple, but I didn’t have a choice.

I hope I answered the question correctly, because I kept thinking about it and I kept thinking, I don’t really know how to answer this, because I don’t really know that I ever felt devalued, given the close network that I grew up in. The first time I went south — I was eleven or twelve years old—with my godmother. When we got to Washington, DC, Union Station, we had to change the train to the segregated train. My godmother had family that lived in Roanoke, Virginia.  Her niece’s daughter and I were the same age. Her niece and I decided we were going to go in town to shop. We got on the bus. I sat down up front and she went to the back of the bus.  She kept trying to get me to come to the back of the bus.  I kept thinking, no I don’t want to sit back there, I want to sit up here so I can see the town. Now, I think they knew I was not from the South, because when speaking, you could hear I wasn’t a Southerner. On the way home, my godmother said to me, “You could have gotten us killed.” I wasn’t doing it to protest. What did I know? I came from Princeton. I’d never been on a segregated bus. We went to a store and they had the water fountains. One said “Colored Only” and one said “White Only.” And I saw it. It wasn’t like I didn’t see it. She went to the one that said “Colored Only,” and I went to the one that said “White Only.”  We were right next to each other. I didn’t know the difference. I mean I was really not protesting, but it wasn’t in my consciousness.

I think that I’m blessed because I had the opportunity to know my maternal and paternal grandmothers.  And I was raised by a mother and surrounded by aunts who made it their mission for my siblings, cousins, and I to know our value, our worth, our history, and our culture.  Particularly my mother, who is a Pan-Africanist. My mother always wanted her children to understand our true connection to American society, and not just from the way we are taught normally. There is more to African-American/Black history in America than is typically taught.  Being brought up in that way made me a lover of people, because I valued myself.  So because I didn’t have any questions about my culture, my heritage, and my value as a woman, I am a lover of people.   In the same vein, I experienced something tragic as a child. It was a tragedy to my family, but because we have such a close-knit family and because—my family surrounded me—I think that I turned out…I’m not going to say “better,” but I turned out differently than someone else who may have gone through the same experience, as a result of the love of my family, particularly the women.  And then my connection to Princeton. I grew up spending weekends and holidays in family member’s homes on John and Green Streets, where my grandmother and all of her sisters lived in close proximity to one another.  So, I have fond memories of running up and down John Street, Green Street, Clay Street and Witherspoon Street.  Attending the First Baptist Church on Sundays. Walking uptown to visit the library or get ice cream. Visiting Trinity Cathedral because that was my grandmother’s church.  My late grandmother and great-aunts are my foundation of “CROWNS”.

[On her hat]

I don’t like pictures and I really don’t like to stand out a lot.  So, even going to church or to an event where I would need to wear a hat—everyone sees this hat. This is just a vibrant hat that caught my eye. I love black, and I love sparkly things, so whenever I have to go somewhere, a church event or something of the sort and wear this hat, I know that it will grab everyone’s attention.

[On her Grandmother Kappy, a Princeton woman known for her hats]

Kappy was one of how many siblings? I’m thinking.  I only knew my grandmother’s sisters really well.  Let me just say she was one of seven sisters.  [She was] my grandmother.  My grandmother worked for the federal government for 56.5 years in various capacities retiring from the McGuire Airforce Base Medical Clinic. My grandmother had four children, one of whom was the first African American municipal clerk in Princeton Borough and in Mercer County—Penney Edwards-Carter.  My grandmother had a remarkable work ethic, was a community activist, and loved to learn. She required her children and grandchildren to educate themselves as she prided education.  She was all about traditions. When I say “traditions,” it’s those African American traditions and values where there’s protocol. Where you carry yourself in an appropriate manner and respect your elders.  The sisters loved family; they loved family holidays.  I remember going from house to house to house. We would start at midnight and visit each of the sister’s homes during Christmas and the floors would be covered with gifts.  That is a tradition that went on for a long time.  And my Aunt Penney’s first cousin now carries that tradition.  So my grandmother was an amazing woman!  McGuire Airforce Base named its library after my grandmother.  She was seventy-six years old when she passed and never told a soul she was sick – working until she her place of employment had her transported by ambulance to the hospital. We loss her three weeks later.  She was very strong and proud woman.

[On how her Grandmother got her nickname]

My grandmother always wore hats, so her nickname was Kappy. You would never see her without a hat.  As a matter of fact, preparing her for her funeral, I did her hair and her children selected a hat that was placed in her casket.  My Aunt Penney and her sisters selected the hat.  My grandmother was known in the community by her collections of hats.

You’re around people all the time and you don’t always appreciate their history or their stories until someone else is like, “Hey, this is so amazing!” and you’re like, “You know what? That is pretty amazing.”

My grandmother has been working the election polls for seventy-eight years without missing a beat. Rain, snow, hail, transportation. Nothing is an obstacle for her. I come from a legacy of strong women. My mother is a strong woman. I tease my mother - I say, “What does your resume look like?” because she can do pretty much anything. She’s been an author, she’s curated an exhibit for Black History Month on Sanibel Island, which is predominantly White. She’s had urban farm. It’s amazing! She just makes up her mind to do something and then she does it. And they’re vast and various professions.

I followed in the footsteps of both of my parents. My father has a gold record from 1963 and we grew up singing. He would say, “Alright, sing this song while I sing this song.” He was teaching us vocabulary through songs. Every time I hear the word “serenity” I remember singing this line from “Sailing” and he would say, “Do you know what that word means?” and we would discuss it. Every time I hear it, I just think of the moment I learned that word, “serenity” from a song from my dad.

My other grandmother sang Jazz and that’s where the performance side of the family comes. When I watch them or I listen to their stories or I listen to old records or have conversations with my grandmother, I realize, “Your family is pretty awesome,” you know?

My personality is kind of wacky, but kinda serious, but kinda type-A, but also I’m right and left brained. That’s all what makes up who I am. There’s a business side of me - that’s my mom. And then there’s the performer side, which is my dad. And having these conflicting people inside me - which has been great for me as a principal - makes sense. I’m still trying to figure out how I got to be principal. I mean, I do the job and I do it well, but it’s just so funny because I was a class clown. And my parents are silly, you know? When I talk to them I’m like, “You guys are so much. You’re just too much.” But it’s made me who I am. Everyone who’s touched me in my family has been an inspiration for me - the matriarchs anyway. The matriarchs are important.

I think every day is a performance. It’s always improv because you have your script - you have your schedule and your plans - but it never really happens that way and so you always have to be thinking on your feet.

I incorporate theatre into problem solving with the students. I have them role play: “Okay, I’ll be the teacher and you be you and let’s see how this played out.” And then usually the students really understand the concept because you need to see it from another lens sometimes. Just switch the lens quickly or “flip the script” as the kids would say. “Now let’s try it again. Now what if you had been really respectful when you said that to the teacher? How might that have played out on her end? So, I’m gonna be her and you be you and let’s do this; let’s run the scene again,” and then they’re like “Oh! I get it.”

I worked at the alternative high school. You have a seventeen-year old in a classroom with a seventy-year old. At the time, for the alternative school, there was really no curriculum. There was just…”get these kids to learn something.” That was great for me because it forced me to bring out my creative side. I had to find ways to reach and teach them. You’re constantly calling on your performance side to keep them engaged because it’s a performance. How do you engage the audience who doesn’t want to be engaged? Who’s there because they have to be? Or they feel forced to be? Or they’re trying really hard not to be wherever they were before they got there?

I was an English teacher and we had Freestyle Fridays. It was always English related, but they were able to present information in different formats. I said, “You can tell the story to me any way you want: give me a poem, give me a rap, give me a song, if you’re traditional you can do the essay…” They did an amazing job at that. But so there - the business side of me was like, “you have to get this done, you have to teach them this, you have to get them to pass the state test, which is gonna be like amazingly difficult.” But the performance side was the vehicle through which I did it. And all of my kids passed the HSPA the first time. I just found a different way to teach it to them and I think that made all of the difference.

My family comes from the South. My great-grandmother, my great-great-grandmother…they were from the South. And when my great-grandmother was alive, she never went to church without a hat. Never, ever, ever. And my grandmother does not go to church without a hat.

I called my grandmother and I was like, “I need a nice church hat for this photo shoot.” When I got to her house she had a hundred of them spread out. She had them on the bed, on the dresser, she had hat boxes. I was just like “Oh my gosh, there’s so much I don’t even know what to pick!” I said, “well I want something dramatic,” but I wanted something that represents her. And so really, when I put this hat on, I said “let me channel my grandmother because she’s amazing.”

The legacy of hat wearing is important. I usually don’t wear hats to church, but I love the fact that [my grandmother] wears hats to church and I love to see the old ladies in church put their hats on. That’s part of the tradition, the African-American experience.

We go to the first Baptist church of Princeton. The traditions are the same as they are in other Baptist churches. It’s the spirituals and it’s the organist and it’s now the drummer - they’re getting too contemporary - but yeah, the hats are the same. They carry the same meaning. It’s pride. When I look at old pictures of my grandparents and my great-grandparents, I say, “You know what? Back in the day, people took such pride in themselves.” And you would think that everyone was rich because the way they carried. My grandmothers, great-grandmothers, they had minks, stoles, and furs and they just looked so elegant to me. And nowadays, I feel like people just don’t care. So, it’s important to, you know, reach back to the traditions. My grandmothers are amazing and any time I get to tell her story or to be a part of something that she loves, then that’s good for me. So that hat represents her all the way and it’s hers.

I’m an only child, so I used to spend quite a bit of time looking out of the window thinking about what my life would be. By 30, I was going to have this degree and I was going to have various other things attended to - which of course I shouldn’t have done because life isn’t like that. But I think in the process, I began to come to some realization of why I’m here and what I’m supposed to do.

I grew up in a household where my parents made it clear that you must use whatever gifts you have been given in a commitment to others in some way. And I think that’s why I went into teaching. I liked it, but I was also discovering many more things about being Black in American society that made me know that this commitment had to be extra strong. Not only had I to teach, but I had to teach and educate and entertain about our condition in the world.

Even though my field is Oral Interpretation of Literature, I was able to follow that commitment through the courses that I gave. I had been so many times the only Black person in a situation. That becomes wearing; you’ve got to be educating all over again that you’re just an ordinary human being. I found that at Douglass College there was a way I could do it. This was in the sixties when there were demands for courses in Black History, so I founded the African, Afro-American Studies program there. That’s a female institution.

Then I went to Princeton, a male institution, where I was teaching in the English Department again. I was able, through these courses, to do some realization not only of finding new aspects of my own life, but passing it on to young people, which was critical. I introduced two courses there, ‘cause there were none. Now there’s a whole program of African American Studies; Mid-sixties there was nothing, so I instituted a course called Five Black Writers and then one in Black Drama.

I think this teaching-performing experience or professor-performing experience is what has brought some young people to a realization. I came up in a household that respected Black History and we knew it even though it wasn’t in the schools. In preparing for these courses and so forth, I had to do so much more in depth studying and understanding that it was helpful to me as well.

I’m very controlled. Organized, but I don’t take risks very well. Usually, I plan. I bought that hat on a whim! I cannot tell you why, but I’ll tell you it was at a breakfast that’s held in Trenton every year by Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, of which I am an alumna. There were vendors there selling everything imaginable, clothing and hats. I saw this hat and it just struck my fancy!

Eleven years ago, my mother passed away. And five years ago on the anniversary of her death, my husband passed away very suddenly.  I went through a pretty significant grieving process. At the time my own children hadn’t really met a lot of their family, my family in North Carolina.  I spent all my childhood summers with my family in North Carolina, but in adult years, I hadn’t spent as much time there.  They knew their father’s family because they had moved to be closer to us. And my in-laws are Caribbean so my children knew a lot about that heritage but not as much about my background. So we went to North Carolina and stayed with my cousin.  And we just spent time.

It was really watching my children, seeing them connect with their extended family -- even just driving into the Carolinas and seeing cotton growing and explaining to my children their background and their heritage -- it was a healing process for me. And that process, I think, also helped me kind of understand who I am and why I’m passionate about the things I’m passionate about.

My mother came from a sharecropping family that also picked cotton. She took a one-way ticket to New York; all she had was that ticket and a job waiting for her to clean someone’s home in Scarsdale, New York.  I remember being nine and her taking me to see the King Tut exhibit in 1979.  And when I recently cleaned out her storage facility, I found the book that she bought at that exhibit. That was a huge purchase for her. For a person who probably wasn’t making minimum wage, to buy that!  She always indulged my interest in the arts and never questioned it. It was like, “Oh, my child likes museums, so I’m gonna take her to a museum.” The sacrifices that she made.

Now I work at an arts organization that does the same types of things that I benefited from as a kid. I was a scholarship kid at pretty much every arts program, visual and performing, that you could possibly think of. And I would not be here in my current position but for, unfortunately, those tragic circumstances, and going home, and getting back in touch with what really made me happy, what I was reallypassionate about.

I’m not really a hat person, but my mom was. My mom was a hat lady. She was a deaconess in the Black Church and she had boxes and boxes of hats. She coordinated her hats with her church suits.  I’d given some away when she first passed away and then I gave the rest of them away when I cleaned out her storage facility. Trying on the hats from the original production of Crowns before deciding which one to wear for my photograph made me feel connected to her.

I was born and raised in Mobile Alabama until age 13, during a very difficult time. 

In this country, when there was open prejudice and struggle between the races. My grandfather was a Pullman porter and frequently had meetings at our home with Asa Philip Randolph and other men who were instrumental in pushing to get the African American porters into the union. Pullman was very much against that, so that was a long contentious struggle. My grandmother was a member of the National Council of Negro Women—I didn’t understand it at the time—but about every month I always went to some other ladies house, and everyone would be dressed up and they would have their hats on. At that point, I didn’t wear a hat. I wore ribbons. I always had big, beautiful bows in my hair, and I would be dressed up in my Sunday best. We would go to Ms. Alice’s house or Ms. Louise’s house, and I liked the food—they had delicious refreshments and talked seriously for hours. The other women all had adult children my grandmother was the only one in the group who had the responsibility of parenting a young child. So, as a result I had to accompany her and sit quietly during these times "being seen, not heard." Which one might say, “Oh, you didn’t have a voice,” but I had quite a voice, even though I behaved. When I did speak, I had lots to say.  The hat represented for me empowerment, because I saw my grandmother put a hat on to do everything. When she went outside to tend to her roses she wore a straw hat. When she and I went downtown to look for fabric to make new garments, she wore a not so ornate hat. And then on Sunday, she wore that Crown.  When she and other women had meetings they all wore a hat.  So I grew up understanding a hat was a part of your dress, you were not dressed without your hat. I think that kind of carried over. Now in the 60’s, when I became active in the Civil Rights Movement, it was all about having an afro. And because I am mixed race, my hair was not as coarse, and so it was very important to me to wear an Afro to identify with the movement so I took my hat off. When I went to college, I went to college with my leopard hat, turned-up brim all the way around, and my mohair coat on. I was all dressed up when I went to college. After being there and becoming more and more aware of the need to be involved in the struggle I became a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Council, I felt it was important for me to have an afro. It was in college that I took my hat off and wore an afro. I began to work very closely with Ben Chavis. We did voter registration in Raleigh, North Carolina, and organized marches and rallies.

I attended St. Augustine's College. It was a good Episcopal school. The Delany Sisters’ father, was appointed the first Black Bishop of the Episcopal Church and Vice Principle of the school. They grew up on the campus and attended classes there.

I left St. Augustine without graduating, as a result of protesting I had been arrested several times. My father, did not understand why I was "causing trouble “he felt like I was so smart and so bright, He kept telling me, why do you get in trouble? Why are you getting arrested? We didn’t send you to school to do that. You were supposed to go to study.” I would tell him, “I am studying.” I was on the Dean’s List. At any rate, I left because the school said that there was a threat to burn the school down if those of us—not just me, but other students were involved—if we continued with our activities, they would burn the school down. I then went back to New York. Once I went back to New York, I kind of toned it down. I eventually got my Social Work degree from Adelphi University.

One of the things I learned in Raleigh, North Carolina. Was to be more covert, strategic and not to broadcast your plans.   In North Carolina I had been very big for getting on the soapbox and talking about what we were planning to do and where we would be holding a rally. And the police would always be there.

So I learned to be a strategist, which has helped me in my work in Harlem, because you can broadcast everything you’re doing, and obstacles and/or impasses can be created.  What I’d learned from being in Raleigh was not to broadcast, and to plan, and that it wasn’t important for people to know what I was doing. I became a very behind-the-scenes kind of person in advocacy for mental health, for the mentally ill, for the homeless, and for children. I spent a great number of years in the South Bronx working to bring mental health services to the poor, and then in the 80’s I moved to Virginia where I raised my son, and also was very active in Civil Rights. He jokes about how he grew up marching. He was marching before he could walk. People used to carry him around on their shoulders. Initially He attended a segregated school in Norfolk because I felt it was emotionally safe but as he grew I knew it was important that he understood and could navigate life which would include diverse systems and people.  So he attended a very prestigious school in Virginia Beach.  Whenever he brought home a list with assignment to select someone to do a report on I would add an African American or minority to the list and indicate "Robert is going to do his report on Gandhi,” or “Robert’s going to do his report on Martin Luther King,” or “He’s going to do his report on GW Carver.” So in a subtle way I assisted the school. I gave them books from my library to use in their library. I gave them a copy of Lift Every Voice and Sing, and I kept Robert home on Martin Luther King Day. One of his teachers said to him one day, “Oh, so what did you do yesterday? Did you go out shopping?” And he was stunned and responded “Shopping? Every year I watch Eye on the Prize. I went to a breakfast with Jesse Jackson. Shopping? My mother doesn’t allow shopping on Martin Luther King Day.”

So, that’s been the basis of my life—from adolescence, from my youth, from when I didn’t even know it—in the midst of the struggle. With my grandmother, and women who were busy working towards women’s rights, and my grandfather, who was busy working towards labor and human rights. And so that’s the basis of my fabric—that’s who I am. That’s how I came to be who I am now. And that's why even now in entering into manufacturing, my son and I are seeking to create jobs for our community, to teach a new skill to offer and option, to sustain an art form to make America aware of our need to produce what we need in this country. That's what made our nation great in the first place and if we can do it so can others.  By keeping our factory open we are proving income for a multitude of people.  And by training them, increasing the economics of the community, and allowing their dollar to evolve within the community. Creating more jobs, and sustaining an art form is what we desire to do I’m 70 years old and still believe I can be a change agent—and do I have stories.

[On her hat]

This hat is one that has both history and is current. The lace on the hat represents the vintage history, when I looked at it initially I saw the Women of NCNW remembering the homes that I went to meetings with my grandmother and with the beautiful lace placemats and lace scarves on the table, and so lace has always been something that I have felt was a part of my heritage. 

And then the ribbon. The hat making industry went from making hats out of felt, and out of straw, and they introduced satin ribbon, which is folded over crinoline, and that is how the satin ribbon is able to hold its shape and be firm. So, the satin ribbon represents the newness of time for hat making. Then ribbons were the hats of the little girl, in this hat we have integrated the new/young with the old, so to speak.  This hat also has a softness because of the lace. Lace is also considered very feminine.  This hat is very much me it gives the appearance of softness but is strong.  I have always processed a warrior spirit but have always presented tender, kind and gentle.  I’ve worn hats all my life, which has attributed to my being known as fashionable. 

[On ribbons being something she also wore in her youth]

That was the youthful hat, and I think knowing my grandmother and how fashionable she was and how particular she was about doing the appropriate. They didn’t want little girls to be look grown. So I think had I worn a hat at four, five, it would have been considered too grown.  I have a portrait, black and white, where I was four, I think I was about four or five and I have a little purse on my arm and patent leather white shoes, lace socks, and I am sitting just like a little lady—no hat. So I realized that even though my grandmother wore one, I had not arrived at the time to wear a hat. I started wearing hats when I was about twelve. I have a picture on Easter Sunday of me wearing a red hat.

I was born in Birmingham, Alabama and moved up to Massachusetts when I was five years old. I went home every summer to stay with my grandmother, so I always felt a connection to the deep South. My grandmother told me stories of those who came before her in the rural South and I always felt a really strong sense of family history. My mother was an activist in the sixties and seventies. She had natural hair and wore African head wraps when I was growing up, and there was also this consciousness of a longer history and a connection to the African continent, as well as the history of the deep South. I was raised into a strong awareness of the importance of history. And not just awareness, but also a real sense of value and pride in it.

My mother was a poet and she wrote this poem about riding a bus attired in an African head wrap and a dashiki and sitting next to an elderly Black woman. The poem ends in this formulation “I was in my traditional garb and sitting next to my tradition.” I grew up listening to poems like that. I always had a real sense of ownership of my past and my identity.

My family’s Catholic so I didn’t grow up with church hats, but you know the adornment of the head was always really important. The hat that I’m wearing is an homage to Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” because I love that song, and I also love velvet and luxurious fabrics.

I don’t wear hats as much as I used to. When I was a young adult I wore them all the time. Actually, from the age of like twelve through my twenties, I wore fedoras and large leopard-print hats! And I made hats because I crochet. It was a really big part of my adornment when I was younger. I don’t wear them as often now, probably because I’m always rushing and it’s more complicated to put together. But I like them. I’m attracted to kind of classic adornment with gloves and jewels and hats. All that sort of old fashioned high feminine stuff is appealing to me. And I’m very conscious of what’s on my head both in terms of having hair that’s natural and the idea that this is where your brain is. This is where your face is. This is how you connect to people.

I realized that being black was a dividing thing much later because I’m a child of immigrants, and where my people are from, it’s not a division in the same way. My family’s from Haiti. They had their revolution a little earlier than the United States did.  And black people won, so, being black was not- is not- a bad thing. There’s no negative connotation to the word “black” in a way that there is in the United States.  The word “black” is often used in English for bad things: black soul, black swan, you wear black and people assume that you have problems, sadness.  If you look it up in the Webster dictionary, the difference between the connotations of white and black are that white is purity, like innocence, angels, heaven, and black is hell, fire and brimstone-- all those things. My family didn’t teach me that. The world- society taught me that.”

I finally started getting information out of my family about my family tree.  Not a lot of info… people always assume that because I’m a black person, but not from the United States, that I have all this culture and history and access to records, as if slavery didn’t exist in Haiti next door. So I get frustrated with those people. I think, “I don’t know my great great great-relative, I don’t know who that is!”   My little brother said, “I didn’t miss it because I didn’t have it, but now I miss it, now that I know about it.”  You know?   He said, “It places me, in a way.” which is what African Americans have lost here. That’s what they’re searching for. Just knowing where you come from and who you come from, places you in your present tense in a different way.  Roots you. That was stolen in a very violent way- in a systematic way.  The United States is pretending that it doesn’t know that happened, which is why we can’t move past it, in my opinion.  We can’t move past it until we’re like, “Yeah that was awful.”  You know?  “We did these terrible things.”  This was not cool.  Let’s talk about this really uncomfortable, awkward, not cool thing, and fully acknowledge its existence. Until you talk out something that hurt you with the person that hurt you, you’re never going to move past it.  You’re always carrying it.

I grew up in a Princeton community where everybody took care of each other. It was a segregated, but proud and contributing community. I lived with my mother and grandmother, but everyone in my family took care of me. When I got older I didn't like it; I couldn't do anything in Princeton because everybody was always telling my grandmother and mother. I would be in school and do something and my grandmother and mother would know about it before I got home! Then you get older and you appreciate it.

I had a grandmother who was very religious. She was like the matriarch of the household. Then, my uncles came home from the war, and she used to have what was called Family Altar. Every Wednesday she would have “Family Alter" when she would pray for the men to come home from the war (World War II) and that her three sons would be safe. So when I grew up, it was a religious time. I had to be in church four times a Sunday, and my grandmother had something that she called Christian Endeavor, where the neighborhood kids would come to Sunday school and we would go to church at night. So I was protected, in that sense.

People don't dress up like they used to. In the "early years" women and men who lived in our community would dress in their finest attire - women with their fancy dresses and hats and men in their suits, ties and hats and they would stroll proudly along Witherspoon Street.  As one resident stated they would "walk along the promenade". My grandmother always wore hats to church, in fact, all the older women wore hats!  

I am a founding member of the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church Verse Speaking Choir.  One of our performing selections was from the book, "Crowns".  I portrayed the woman who attended Bennett College where wearing hats was a must!  I could relate to her story because I graduated from Bennett and a Bennett Lady was known for her attire of a hat, gloves, pocketbook and stockings!

At Bennett College our president was Dr. Player. Dr. Player was very nice but very strict. It was a school where we had chapel three times a week and then on Sunday, but we had assigned seats. I had missed chapel three times, and you could only miss chapel three times as a freshman. So when I went in and took my assigned seat, right in the middle of the talk, with all of the Bennett girls sitting there, she said, "Miss Satterfield, you missed chapel three times." So we would be called out, and I would get so embarrassed! I don't know if I answered your question, but yes, I did have an experience like hers growing up, having been taken care of by many people in the community and in a very close-knit family.

When I arrived for my hat photograph I entered with two hats, one a floppy black hat that my cousin gave me and a black and white trimmed hat that I saw in a magazine.  It was suggested that I wear the black and white one - one of my favorites of the 20+ hats that occupy several hat boxes! When I saw that black and white hat in a magazine, after pondering over the 'need or want' scenario, I bought it!

I'm number 7 of 8 siblings. I grew up on our family-owned farm in rural Mississippi, about 75 miles outside of Jackson. It was a segregated community, but we were self-reliant. And I think, out of that came self-confidence. I grew up in a Baptist Church; a Baptist Church that was also a community center. Neighbors and everyone in the community always looked out for each other. Every upstanding adult was responsible for the well-being of the children and children were prized. They were given the opportunity to build self-confidence, through speaking engagements, singing, reading, and having some responsibility for those younger than yourself. So, I feel that I grew up with a pretty healthy sense of self. When I left the farm to go to college, it was of course my personal aspiration, and of my parents and siblings, but it was also the aspiration of the community. One of their own was heading out into the world.

Even though my childhood was in a small, segregated community, I always dreamed of seeing the bigger world. Fortunately, through education and a career with a global company, I’ve had the opportunity to travel extensively, live in different places and meet many different peoples. It feels like many of the things I dreamed about while I was growing up have come to pass. I am proud to be a daughter of the rural south, and I think there was some grounding and connection to the Earth, to family, and to the community that really has helped me as I've gone on to live in different places and meet different people.

I grew up with hats, but that's not surprising coming from the South, where the sun is strong. Particularly growing up on a farm, everyone used a hat as sunscreen. Working in the fields, garden, and yard, you needed that protection. I still wear hats for sun protection. When I was growing up, commercial sunscreens were not something I even knew about or used. Today, I still use hats to screen the sun along with commercial sunscreen.

When I was growing up, hats were mostly for adults. Ladies wore hats to funerals to respect the dead and the family of the deceased. They were worn to church as respect to the higher power, and as a bit of a status symbol. My mother had a quite a collection. But in general, I didn't wear a hat for fashion. Like many things, hats come and go in terms of fashion, and the region of the country.  Twenty years ago, I didn’t see them so much, but within the last ten years, hats seem to have made a comeback.  I enjoy wearing hats, they are a part of my heritage, and a wonderful conversation starter!

My mother had me on August 9, 1953.  I am her sixth child. Our family lived with my grandparents at 27 Green Street.  My mother went to Trenton to have me at St. Francis Hospital. Two days later she had a stroke and fell into a coma. My grandmother had to take care of me.

My mother was not supposed to survive. She was in a coma for six months. When she did come out of the coma, she had twins four years later. She lived to be seventy-five.

My grandmother played a big role in my life because she poured into me things she probably wanted my mother to listen to. She actually gave me an old soul! I have the soul of my grandmother and great-grandmother. She taught me how to take care of children, how to understand different things. She poured into me who I was before I even understood who I was. Once the words were inside of me, no matter what I went through in life, her wisdom came back. It's almost as if she made sure I was going to see these days come to pass. And the things I am able to do with children in the community -- it's because she taught me and she had patience. She used to tell me, 'You have the patience of Job." And a lot of people don't have that, I realize now.

To have somebody in your life -- a relative or not -- pour some positive into you, no matter how much negative gets poured into you, the positive will still rise. I'm grateful for her words, and I'm grateful for her being my grandmother. She was an elder in her church, Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church, and a staple in the Witherspoon Jackson community.  I can't hold a candle to her, but I know she is really really happy about the things I do now and how I do them.

My mother founded her own business. She and my father always would say to us that "You can do anything." Even though they probably felt, "Well, almost anything." But they didn't tell us that part - "almost anything." So I'm glad they kept that to themselves, so that I can keep going. Because the path that I have started on, I had no idea I'd end up where I am today. I never saw it coming.

Growing up, my parents, King and Josephine Webster, gave me a real sense of value. The mention of my father’s name made me proud because it was strong. I grew up in a family of five, and was the middle child, but I never felt less important or significant - we all had a voice. When I was four years old, my parents packed up their car to drive from Beaufort, North Carolina to Red Bank, New Jersey. My grandmother said to me, “Now Wanda, make sure you keep your father awake…that he don’t go to sleep.” She said this because if you were Black and coming from the South you couldn’t stop. You had no place to sleep. You couldn’t go to a hotel. It wasn’t safe. So the journey from South to North, was one that was very sacred, it was ceremonial, and it was very special because it took courage. To help my father stay awake and lead the way to the North, even though I was in the back seat, felt like I was on his shoulders. As I grew up my dad would tell the story of our trip from the South over and over and over again - how I talked without rest and sang ‘Jesus Loves Me’ from North Carolina to New Jersey in our 1954 black Cadillac Coupe DeVille. The story of our journey served to remind me that what I had to say, if it had purpose, was always important.

My parents’ decision to encourage us to talk and have our own ideas came during a time in America when the conversation was shifting from what it meant to be a Negro to being black, and at the time that I was also growing from girl to woman. Expressing myself and doing it freely in a space where I was affirmed gave me great hope.

I am also grateful for the opportunity my parents provided us to discover the world through reading. And while we did not have books in a traditional context, I was always surrounded by great written stories. We had magazines, because my father worked at a place that had LIFE Magazine, Look Magazine and National Geographic. So, those were my books as a four year old, and that's where my passion for giving books to children comes from. Books are powerful, life giving, full of art and words. The ideas that would become a part of my life’s narrative where introduced to me through great writing. But it was my mother who helped me, by example, to understand how to embody the discipline that would allow me to live out the life I felt drawn to create as wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, mentor, minister, and business leader.

My mother had a quiet authority and peace. She took care of us, which in those days also meant paying special attention to, and pride in, our hair. She made sure that in going to Sunday School, our hair was always pressed. I had two sisters so we always wore clothes that looked alike. Our little shiny shoes-- they made us feel valued, because we were specially cared for and loved. That's the journey as a girl.

The journey going forward as an emerging individual-- I had difficulties going to school because I was very outspoken as a child. I was very articulate. I had my own thoughts on how things should be.

After all, I navigated my father all the way from North Carolina to New Jersey, and I kept him awake. I always felt very important for that. I kept him interested by asking him questions, and he asked me questions. I’ve always been curious about things around me. In school, teachers didn’t like outspoken Black girls-- Negro girls, because I was a Negro then. They didn’t like outspoken Negro girls. Some of them understood that I had a voice, and gave me encouragement to develop my voice.

I developed my voice in the arts, because I love art and I love creating things. I remember once in fourth or fifth grade doing an illustration where my class sang this song about Mexico, and I was on the stage drawing a man with a sombrero as they talked. I was illustrating. That was huge. That was a proud moment where I had a voice where I was able to articulate things. I got involved in environments where my voice would be heard. I was scouting as a six year old. I was involved in Brownies, and was an outspoken little Brownie about things I learned. I was always curious, and through being curious, I’ve learned my value. Throughout my journey I’ve been in situations where I’ve had something to say about what surrounds me. I’ve learned to create an environment where not only do I learn to listen, but others listen to what I have to say. I think that’s what has brought me to the intersection of being an activist, advocate, reconciler, and doer of the things I believe in and that I’m passionate about. That’s where I think a lot of my value came in. I was given assignment that I could fulfill: everyone was asleep, except for me and my dad. That’s where I found my voice and my sense of value. Emergence as a person was never hindered by my family environment-- rather, that environment was one that was nurturing and open and exploratory. So, I found my voice that way, and the courage to be myself.

My hat is significant in that when my mother went to heaven about ten years ago, my daughter and I gathered up all of her hats and all of our hats. We decided we would give them away as a way of celebrating her life-- her dressy church hats and our dressy church hats. So I haven’t worn a hat since then. Since that time, this is my first time needing to do a hat. And, wearing a hat again has made me think about my hats growing up as a girl, and about the power of hats – what the crown represents. I thought a lot about crowns and the Black woman, as well as about my journey, my mother’s journey, my grandmother’s journey, and my daughter’s journey, and how one does not obtain a sense of a crown without the journey to the cross—the daily cross that you carry as a Black woman.

Everyone has a different expression of that, but for me the hat has represented that I can celebrate this particular phase of my life; that I can pay tribute to the legacy of myself, the legacy of other Black women, and certainly the legacy of my mother and grandmother, who wore hats to church. Our crowns are a victorious celebration of the many crosses we bear as women. Whether a woman’s crown of choice is a hat, handkerchief, head wrap, a set of bracelets, or a beautiful necklace, her crown says “I can celebrate myself, I can reward myself.” Because every woman must celebrate the success of her journey, which is also an acknowledgment of her suffering.

As the daughter of King Webster and his bride Josephine, as a southern Negro girl journeying to the north and growing up in America as a black woman, I’ve decided to wear a literal crown - a hat. My crown reminds me of the power that I have to celebrate my full experience including the challenges, the suffering, and the struggle. It reminds me that I have journeyed without rest, wide awake and engaged in life with full permission to express my hope. And, at this time in my life, my hope causes me to believe that the Lord my God has a final crown waiting for me.

I grew up in North Carolina, one of 12 children (a twin), daughter of a sharecropper, not much money, but a memorable happy, happy childhood.  As a family, we worked together, played together, and had fun in the process.  There always seemed to be an EXTRA person in our house - perhaps a family member, a friend of the family, a friend of the friend - someone extra - in our house as the door was always open.

The first real traumatic event in my life was the death of my twin brother - who died from injuries sustained in the Viet Nam War.  We were grown, having graduated from college already, but it affected me not like anything else.

I think my involvement in volunteering started when I was growing up in North Carolina where my father was a sharecropper.  There were lots and lots of acres of land and my father grew extra vegetables which my siblings and I would pick to share with those neighbors in need.  There were other things we did as a family to help others in need, but picking vegetables grew to be an annual event.  While my volunteering in Princeton started for an entirely different reason, one thing led to another and there is always someone/something in need of help.

In Princeton my volunteering started shortly before my son was to go to kindergarten and was selected to be in a group of kids who " needed extra help" without the knowledge of me or my husband.  When queried why he was chosen, how he was chosen, what were the goals, etc., I was not given any response that I could accept - especially since my husband was a guidance counselor in the same school district.  I did later find out that he was one of the black kids from the John/Witherspoon area (we lived on Birch Ave. at the time) who made up a majority of the kids in that group, and my son was chosen because he "lacked" coordination.  The school had requested a $30,000 grant from the state and had to have a quota of kids in order to qualify for that grant.  I was distraught, my husband was livid, and we agreed that I should handle this situation - which I did.  Two years later I was on the board of that group that had chosen my son, and I remained on that group until my son graduated from elementary school.

In the interim, I also joined the Civil Rights Commission where I remained a member until I was first elected to Princeton Borough Council in 1984.  I continued with the Civil Rights Commission after being elected as the Borough's liaison for a number of years.
In 1984 I was elected to Princeton Borough Council for the first time and remained a Councilperson until 2005, when I was appointed to be Mayor after the death of Joe O'Neill who died of cancer.  In 2006 I was elected to complete the full term of Joe O'Neill.

In 2007, I was elected Mayor for a full term and remained until I retired as Mayor in 2012, but continued to serve on committees and boards.

During the 26 consecutive years of representing Princeton Borough as an elected official - the longest number of years consecutive or otherwise, I believe - with the exception of the Sewer Operating Committee, I was given the opportunity to serve on every board and/or commission - including being Police Commissioner and Fire Commissioner.

When I first came to Princeton I had a few hats - but I was never a "hat" person - one who wore hats all the time. For starters I lived in an apartment and needed space to store other things. Secondly, I had a short haircut and did not want a hat to "mess up" my hair.  Now I am letting my hair grow, but I continue not to be a hat person.

I think I am a very fortunate person to have accomplished some of the things that I have accomplished; to have always had a loving family; to have someone on whom I can depend at this point in my life; for life and health period.  I am learning not to dwell on those things over which I do not have control, and not let the small things in life control me.