Who is Sarah (Sadie) Delany from Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years and what is their importance?

Sarah ("Sadie") Delany is one of the famous Delany children and one of the main subjects of "Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters First 100 Years". She was the second child in a family of ten born to Nanny and Henry Delany. Born in Virginia, Sadie was raised in Raleigh, where she would live until her early twenties.

Sadie was a Mama's girl, and she is described as a sweet, agreeable child, who did what she was told. While her sister Bessie watched the younger children, Sadie learned how to run a home before attending college.

After graduation, Sadie became a teacher. She broke through the color barrier and spent her career teaching in the New York Public Schools, where she was often the only Negro in the school system. Determined to make her way and to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a colored woman was just as good as any other person, Sadie became a popular teacher and well loved teacher.

Sadie never married, and she spent her life living with her younger sister, Bessie. The sisters retired to Mount Vernon, where Bessie died in 1995, followed by Sadie, four years later in 1999.