Tell Them We Are Rising: A Memoir of Faith in Education
"This is a heartwarming story about struggle, survival, and achievement. If we didn't know people like this in our lives, we would want to invent them. What more could one ask? A good story told with a deft hand."--William H. Gray III President, United Negro College Fund
"An inspiring account of an African American educator determined to make a difference in the lives of indifferent students."--Kirkus Reviews
"Tell Them We Are Rising is a wonderful, inspiring story of service, commitment, generosity, love, and hope. It is written with the humor, wisdom, and grace of a bygone era, yet spiced with the ultramodern savvy and the future-oriented vision of a twenty-year-old. What an extraordinary woman! What an extraordinary life""--Chaka Fattah U.S. Representative (Pennsylvania)
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Book details
- Author
- Ruth Wright Hayre, Alexis Moore
- Imprint
- Trade Paper Press, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
- Published
- Pages
- 228
- Formats
- Paperback, Hardcover
- Subjects
- Biography & Autobiography › Cultural & Regional
- Topics
- African American history · teaching · women's biography · philanthropy · racial equality · Philadelphia
- ISBN-13
- 9780471327226 (Paperback)9781620456033 (Hardcover)
About the author
RUTH WRIGHT HAYRE was the first African American high school teacher, first African American high school principal, first African American public school superintendent, and first female president of the Philadelphia Board of Education in the history of Philadelphia’s public school system. She is the author of Tell Them We Are Rising: A Memoir of Faith in Education, co-written with Alexis Moore.
Hayre received honors from the University of Pennsylvania and the NAACP. She held a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree in English literature, and a doctorate, all from the University of Pennsylvania, earned in 1949.
In 1988, Hayre established the "Tell Them We Are Rising" program, pledging to fund college tuition for 116 sixth-graders from two Philadelphia elementary schools. Her memoir drew directly from that commitment to education and community uplift.
Ruth Wright Hayre was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and was based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.