Having Our Say Essay Example for Free

Having Our Say EssaySarah and Bessie Delany were extraordinary women. They were very intelligent, kind, yet feisty women. Sarah and Bessie Delany were very close sisters and lived to be one hundred and four and one hundred and nine years of age. The Delany sisters were able to live spacious because of the way they lived their career. Over all these two women lived a good life and had two loving, caring, and wise parents to sustain who they have become in our American history, but life for The Delany sisters was not always easy they go most many hardships to have the respect they do today. In the book Having Our Say The Delany Sisters First 100 historic period The Delany sisters faced many challenges because they were sheltered, educated and black African American females. The Delany sisters grew up at saint Augustines teach in Raleigh, NC. The Delany family was a very religious family and tried to follow all the rules to bread and butter a good sinful life (56, 57). Bein g in their early twenties the Delany sisters world only lie of enshrine Augs college and vote downtown Raleigh. They only have visited two places Yak, Virginia and Fernandina, Florida (115).Henry Delany the sisters father was the first pick out African American bishop of the apostolic churches (3). Therefore the Delany children were look highly upon and the Delany sisters were very sheltered growing up. Bessie talked about how sheltered and clueless she and Sadie were when she made the statement, Our childhood years were so protected, we didnt have but the vaguest flavor of what sex. We had a neighbor who said to us once, You girls are so green, its no wonder those cows dont mistake you for grass and gobble you up. (84).The Delany sisters didnt live like normal kids. They military service raise their seven younger brother and sisters, and wasnt aloud to go anywhere off Saint Augs campus without supervision. Living in the city of Raleigh when the Delany sisters became young women in their mid twenties they last moved to New York after visiting a few time. The two sisters were afraid and didnt sleep with how to talk to men without feeling uncomfortable they were very educated and disciplined, but when it came to having streets smarts they lack a isthmus of that (111).Sadie had one guy friend name frank who took liking to her and her father was not very well-disposed of him and forbidden Sadie from seeing him again. Bessie said I suppose Lemuel and Papa thought they were doing the right thing by Sadie, forbidding her to see frank anymore, but I dont think was right. She was a great(p) woman. She should have had a say (121). The Delany sisters turned out fine, but if they werent so sheltered life could have gone a little smoother for them.In the early 1900s it was very antiquated for any African Americans to have any education beyond high school. All the Delany children went to college and got the education. Sadie Delany graduated from Saint Aug in 1910 and in the same year got her first teaching job working for Wake County unrestricted schools in North Carolina (112,113). A few years later Bessie graduated from Saint Augs and got a job on the button like her sister in Boardman, NC. In 1913 Bessie went to Brunswick, GA to teach at an Episcopal school for African American children (130).In 1915 the Delany sisters took their first trip to New York City and fell in love with the big city (139). The Delany sisters moved there in to further there education. Sadie faced problems when she started school in New York. Sadie said I had a difficult time at first, because I authentically had to scramble in courses like chemistry. That was a problem for a lot of colored students. Often, our early training was not as good as the white students because colored schools had no money. (149) Many whites labeled blacks as dumb.Sadie didnt get a grade that she deserved in her chemistry class, and the teacher was lancinate against her. The Del any sisters had to prove that they were capable of learning and succeeding just as much as white mountain were, and it was already hard for them because they were black, but existence a black female made it almost unachievable to be taken seriously. Being a black person in America was hard living and worse being black and living in the south than anywhere else especially after the Jim boast laws were passed.The Delany sisters took trips often to the drug store Bessie said I was not a crying child, except when it came to being treated badly because of my race, like when they wouldnt serve us at the drug store envision (105). Being a black female back in that time they received worse disrespects than just being a black male. But if there were blacks that were lighter skinned they were treated somewhat weaken because they were close to looking white. Bessie said To be lighter-skinned was more desirable If you were very dark skinned you were looked down upon.We saw in our own fami ly that people treated the lighter-skinned children better. (106) Throughout the Delany sisters life they have had to go through the constant disrespect of race and discrimination. Having gone what the Delany sister went through they became wonderful, courageous, educated women. All the shinny they went through made them stronger and how they lived their life helped them live for as long as they did to tell their life obstacles and achievements.