I was shaped by the cultural cataclysms of the 1960's and dedicated myself to the reform that would usher in a new age of freedom and equality for all. Throughout my life I have worked against caste segregation and discrimination of all kinds. Through a focus on the history of under-represented groups and a media that perpetuates inequality, I have sought to build communities that implement Martin Luther King's vision for integrated, egalitarian, beloved communities. That fundamental purpose, and the values that support it, has been the focus of my life and work.

"First""

As an early baby boomer (1945) I experienced many social and political changes and transitions in society, education, and the economy and regularly found myself in uncharted territory as a "first".

I was in the second graduating class of East Orange Catholic, an all-girl school founded to serve working class girls in the Diocese of Newark, New Jersey. I worked my way through Montclair State Teacher's College as a Social Studies major and an English minor. In my senior year, I student-taught in Montclair, New Jersey in the first year of court-ordered busing. I was the first NDEA doctoral fellow in the Social Studies Department at New York University, the first teacher of African American History and the only woman faculty in history at Orange County Community College. Subsequently, I was the first female night supervisor at Meyer Library at Stanford University. I went on to become the first Ph.D. to teach at Wilson Magnet High School in the City School District of Rochester, New York and later the only female faculty in the History/Political Science group at Monroe Community College.

Shifts in gender control and power are always difficult and being the only interloper exposed me to gross inequality and bias. Early on I decided that I wanted to spend my time in a classroom not a courtroom, and chose to focus on my work rather than on my deplorable conditions and minimal pay or no pay. Currently as a community activist, scholar, and writer I am engaged in the urban challenges, historical heritage, and community life of the Nineteenth Ward in the city of Rochester, New York.