| Sarah Louise Delany | |
 Sarah Louise Delany (left) with her sister Elisabeth Delany (right). | |
| Birth: | 19 September 1889 Lynch's Station, Campbell County, Virginia, USA |
| Death: | 25 January 1999 Mount Vernon, New York, USA |
| Age: | 109 years, 128 days |
| Country: |  USA
|
| Centenarian | |
Sarah Louise "Sadie" Delany (19 September 1889 – 25 January 1999) was an American educator, civil rights pioneer and centenarian. Along with her younger sister, Elizabeth "Bessie" Delany, she was the subject of the New York Times bestselling oral history biography, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, by journalist Amy Hill Hearth. Sadie was the first African-American permitted to teach domestic science at the high-school level in the New York public schools, and became famous, with the publication of the book, at the age of 103.
Biography[]
Sarah Louise Delany was born in Lynch's Station, Campbell County, Virginia, United States on 19 September 1889, at the home of her mother's sister, Eliza Logan. She was the second-eldest of ten children born to the Rev. Henry Beard Delany (1858–1928), the first black person elected Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, and Nanny Logan Delany (1861–1956), an educator. Rev. Delany was born into slavery in St. Mary's, Georgia. Nanny Logan Delany was born in a community then known as Yak, Virginia, seven miles from Danville.
Delany was raised on the campus of St. Augustine's School (now University) in Raleigh, North Carolina, where her father was the Vice-Principal and her mother a teacher and administrator. she was a 1910 graduate of the school.
In 1916, Delany moved to New York City, where she attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, then transferred to Columbia University where she earned a bachelor's degree in education in 1920 and a master's of education in 1925. She was a New York City schoolteacher until her retirement in 1960. She was the first black person permitted to teach domestic science on the high school level in New York City. In the final decades of her life, she lived in Mount Vernon, New York
Delany died in Mount Vernon, New York, United States on 25 January 1999, at the age of 109 years, 128 days. She is interred at Mount Hope Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The Delany Sisters[]
In 1991, Delany and her sister Bessie were interviewed by journalist Amy Hearth, who wrote a feature story about them for The New York Times ("Two 'Maiden Ladies' With Century-Old Stories to Tell"). A New York book publisher read Hearth's newspaper story and asked her to write a full-length book on the sisters. Ms. Hearth and the sisters worked closely for two years to create the book, an oral history called Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, which dealt with the trials and tribulations the sisters had faced during their century of life. The book was on The New York Times bestseller lists for 105 weeks. It spawned a Broadway play in 1995 and a television film in 1999. Both the play and film adaptations were produced by Judith R. James and Dr. Camille O. Cosby.
In 1994, the sisters and Hearth published The Delany Sisters' Book of Everyday Wisdom, a follow-up to Having Our Say. After Bessie's death in 1995 at age 104, Sadie Delany and Hearth created a third book, On My Own At 107: Reflections on Life Without Bessie.
Delany was the aunt of science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany Jr., the son of her youngest brother.
References[]
- Two 'Maiden Ladies' With Century-Old Stories to Tell New York Times, 22 September 1991
- Sadie Delany, Witness to Century, Dies at 109 New York Times, 26 January 1999
- Recalling The Sisters Washington Post, 18 April 1999
- The Delany Sisters: A Relationship That Lasted Over A Hundred Years The New York Community Trust, 15 February 2019