Amy Hill Hearth, Journalist & Author

HAVING OUR SAY: THE DELANY SISTERS' FIRST 100 YEARS
The daughters of a man born into slavery in the South, the Delany Sisters had an unusual upbringing: They were raised on the campus of St. Augustine's School (now College) in Raleigh, N.C., where their father was the Vice-Principal and their mother, a teacher and administrator. Their father, the Rev. Henry B. Delany, later became the first black person elected as an Episcopal Bishop USA. The sisters set their sights high, and both earned advanced college degrees at a time when this was very rare for women, especially women of color. Both were groundbreaking career women in the 1920s and '30s, Sadie as a teacher and Bessie as a dental surgeon. Neither ever married. They lived together in Harlem, N.Y. for many years, eventually retiring in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. where they bought a house with a garden on a quiet street. Witty, wise, and candid, the sisters were still living independently, and in excellent health, when journalist Amy Hill Hearth "discovered" them, as they liked to phrase it, in 1991.

Bessie died Sept. 25, 1995, at age 104. Sadie passed away four years later on Jan. 25, 1999, at age 109. Both sisters died in their sleep at home, just as they wished, and not in a hospital. They are buried alongside their beloved Mama and Papa in Raleight, N.C.

MOST FAMOUS QUOTES:

"The reason we've lived this long is because we never married. We never had husbands to worry us to death!"
- Bessie

"If it helps one person, it's worth doing."
- Sadie

The story behind HAVING OUR SAY:

Summer 1991: Amy Hill Hearth, a reporter on assignment to The New York Times, hears about the sisters and arranges to meet them. The sisters, then-unknown and living quietly in Mt. Vernon, N.Y., agree to let Amy interview them.

September 22, 1991: Amy's feature on the Delany sisters is published in The New York Times. Within days, a book publisher contacts Amy and asks if she will expand her story into a full-length book.

Fall 1991 - Spring 1993: Amy works with the Delany sisters to create the book, an oral history which the threesome decide to call, HAVING OUR SAY.

September 19, 1993: HAVING OUR SAY is published by Kodansha America in New York on Sadie Delany's 104th birthday.

Fall 1993: The book becomes a New York Times bestseller -- for a total of 105 weeks! The sisters enjoy the notoriety.

April 1995: Emily Mann, artistic director of the McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J., adapts Amy's book to the stage. The play adaptation, also called HAVING OUR SAY, debuts at the Booth Theater on Broadway in New York City. Amy takes the sisters to see the play on Mother's Day.

April 1999: The telefilm adaptation of HAVING OUR SAY airs on CBS, starring Ruby Dee, Diahann Carroll, and Amy Madigan.

Present-day: The book has been added to the curriculum at high schools and colleges across the U.S. and overseas. Fifteen years after its publication, it is considered a classic of the oral history genre.

Below is a sampling of book reviews of HAVING OUR SAY:

"The sisters recount a century of history better than any academic textbook" - Ms. magazine

“A proud, vivid oral history” – Newsweek

“This engaging and affirmative chronicle will be savored, and shared, by general reader and scholar alike.” – The Washington Post Book World

“The Delany Sisters are a national treasure” – Julian Bond

“This book is destined to beome a classic!” – Clarissa Pinkola Estes

"I felt proud to be an American citizen reading HAVING OUR SAY...The two voices, beautifully blended...evoke an epic history...often cruel and brutal, but always deeply humane." - The New York Times Book Review