Background
Her father was a banker in an African-American owned business.
Her father was a banker in an African-American owned business.
In Bordentown, New Jersey, she attended the Industrial School for Colored Youth and graduated with the highest grade point average.
Her maternal grandfather was a Civil War veteran. At Howard University, she was chairwoman of the collegiate chapter of the Young Women’s Christian Association. During college, she was also the vice-president of Alpha Kappa Alpha, but later voted to reorganize the sorority and formed Delta Sigma Theta with twenty-one other women Due to illness, she graduated Howard in 1915. She was also the first African-American teacher in Rochester, New New York