The Delanys

Your splendid feature “The American Century of Bessie and Sadie Delany” in the October issue is oral history at its finest. The fascinating recollections of these devoted centenarian sisters, whose lives connect and represent two vastly different centuries, inspire us with the magnitude of their accomplishments as educated, successful professionals in a virulently racist and anti-female society.

These formidable individualists have blazed a brilliant trail for women after them to follow—women like Rosa Parks and Barbara Jordan, Sandra Day O’Connor and Hillary Rodham Clinton—and every woman today who wants to live a rewarding and productive life with dignity and freedom from oppression.

The Delany sisters are glowing proof that the human spirit will rise above the evils of intolerance and injustice, and that the loving hand of compassion and grace will find a refuge in every heart it touches.