Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years

Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years

Having Our Say is the amazing story about the almost invincible Delany sisters. In this novel, Sarah L. Delaney and A. Elizabeth Delany tell the tale of their century long lives in America. The reader learns about their whole lives starting from their childhood, which was on the campus of St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, North Carolina, all the way to their final years in which they lived in New York. During their lives, the Delany sisters lived during the Harlem Renaissance, had to go through the Jim Crow laws, and lived to be apart of the civil rights movement. These sisters were lucky enough to learn how to read and write when they were children and later able to attend college. Bessie went on to become a well-know dentist in the community of Harlem and Sadie became a teacher of domestic science. She was the first African-American science teacher to be employed by the New York City Board of Education.

I really enjoyed reading this novel and I felt that it was very interesting to learn about the lives of the Delany’s. There were many parts of this book that I liked but there were also some things that I disliked as well. One major component of the book that I thought was intriguing was the fact that most of the words were the Delany sisters’ own. I enjoyed listening to the minor details in their lives and the little stories that they would tell. For example, Sadie remembered her first memory of sitting on her mother’s lap

while she was holding a box of candy. Her mother told her to share with her brother Lemuel, which caused her to whine and cry because she did not want to share with him. To teach Sadie a lesson that she should share the next time, she took the candy out of her hands and threw it into the fire. These types of little stories in the novel made me want to read more and learn more about their lives. There was not really that much to dislike about this book, except for the fact that it was difficult to keep track of all the siblings that the Delany sisters had. Every two years there was a new Delany child born, starting with Sadie and Bessie in 1889 and 1891. All of the Delany children lived successful lives and it was very challenging to remember all of the accomplishments that each of them achieved.

After reading this book, I gained a great amount of new information, which I did not know about before. I acquired new facts about the Jim Crow laws and I also learned about many important African-American leaders of the civil rights movement. Some of these people included W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, and Rosa Parks. The Delany family was put through many incidents caused by the Jim Crow laws. Some of these incidents included them sitting in the Jim Crow