Sadie and Bessie Delany

Sarah Louise " Sadie" Delany ( born September 19, 1889 in Lynch Station, Virginia; † January 25, 1999 in Mount Vernon, New York) and Annie Elizabeth " Bessie " Delany ( born September 3, 1891 in Raleigh, North Carolina; † September 25, 1995 in Mount Vernon ) were African-American sisters, civil rights activists and authors.

Life

Sadie Delany was born as the second of ten children of the Reverend Henry Beard Delany (1856-1928), the first black bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. She attended St. Augustine 's College in Raleigh. In 1916 she moved to New York. She studied at the Pratt Institute, and went after graduating from the Teachers College of Columbia University. In 1925, she earned her master. She was the first black woman who could teach home economics in New York State public schools.

Her two years younger sister Bessie followed her to New York in 1918. She studied at Columbia University as the only black woman in her class dentistry. After graduating in 1923, she was the second black woman in New York State license to practice as a dentist. For her services she drew from Columbia 's School of Dental and Oral Surgery in 1994 with the Distinguished Alumna Award.

Together with journalist Amy Hill Hearth, they wrote in 1992 the book Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters ' First 100 Years ( German: Our first hundred years), in which they let the last century to pass from the perspective of two African-Americans Revue. The book became a bestseller, and its base was a Broadway play, which was nominated for a Tony Award. The director Lynne Littman adapted the piece in 1999 for a TV movie with Diahann Carroll in the role of Sadie and Ruby Dee as Bessie.

The sisters, on publication of the book, both over a hundred years old, received in 1993 an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest writers of the world. The following year she published a second book with Delany Sisters' Book of Everyday Wisdom.

After Bessie died in 1995 at the age of 104 years, Sadie processed their lives alone in another book, On My Own at 107: Reflections on Life Without Bessie. Sadie Delany died in 1999 at the age of 109 you were the aunts of the science fiction author Samuel R. Delany.

Works

• Sarah Louise Delany, A. Elizabeth Delany: Our first hundred years. The Delany sisters tell ( " Having Our Say. Delany Sisters The First 100 Years "). Earthscan, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-426-60442-6.
• Sarah Louise Delany, A. Elizabeth Delany: wisdom of a hundred years of life ( " Delany Sisters' Book of Everyday Wisdom" ). Earthscan, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-426-60506-6.