Damali Rhett was born in October 1977, in Cleveland, Ohio. Her name derives from a Nigerian praise poem and means “beautiful vision.” As an infant, Damali moved to Washington, D.C. During high school Damali was accepted…

Pouné Saberi was born in Tehran, Iran, and experienced the 1979 Iranian Revolution as a child. Her family left Iran in the mid-1980s during its war with Iraq and settled briefly in Boston. Pouné’s parents and younger…

Kirtrina Baxter was born in 1969 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She grew up in a diverse neighborhood in Willingboro, New Jersey, where her parents are Evangelical pastors. Katrina spent childhood summers in Philadelphia…

Tykee James was born on January 21, 1994, at Temple Hospital in North Philadelphia. He soon moved with his parents to the Fort Irwin Army Base in the High Mojave Desert of California. In 2000, after his parents’…

Peter Handler was born in 1947 in Brooklyn, New York, and spent much of his childhood in New Jersey. Self-described as an atheist-Jew, Peter spent his summers as a teenager at the Shaker Village Work Camp in New…

Adam Garber was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1983. He has three sisters, including a twin, and both his parents have PhDs. Adam and his family were very involved in their synagogue and Atlanta’s Jewish community. At the…

Rasheedah Phillips was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1984. She moved to Philadelphia at fourteen years old, the same year she became a mother. Four years later, Rasheedah graduated with honors from Abraham Lincoln High…

Sandra Harding was born in San Francisco, California, the first of five children born to Lloyd and Constance Harding. Her father's struggle to find work during the Great Depression led the family to Los Angeles, where…

Shirley Mahaley Malcom was born in 1946 in Birmingham, Alabama, which was a segregated city. She grew up in her grandmother’s house with her parents and sister and was surrounded by other family and a strong Black…

Norman R. Augustine was born on July 27, 1935, in Denver, Colorado. An only child, he grew up just about on the prairie and loved spending time in the nearby mountains. His father fought in World War I, and Augustine…

Maxine Savitz was born in 1937 in Baltimore, Maryland. Her parents had both been born in the United States; her father’s family was from Ukraine, and her mother’s family was from Russia. The oldest of three children,…

Thomas E. Lovejoy III was born in New York City, New York, in 1941. An only child, Lovejoy spent a year-and-a-half on the eastern shore of Maryland out in nature as a young child. His father ran a life insurance…

Luis Proenza was born in 1944 in Mexico City, Mexico. When he was growing up, his parents ran a family business. He grew up in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and Acapulco, Mexico. Proenza remembers spending time by the ocean and…

Vishva M. Dixit was born in Kisii, Kenya in 1956. His parents, who were originally from India, served as physicians in Kenya with the British Army, and they stayed in the country after their service. Dixit experienced…

Barbara A. Schaal was born in 1947 in Berlin, Germany. In 1950 the family immigrated to the United States where they met her aunt and uncle (her father’s brother) in Chicago, Illinois. As Schaal grew up, she started to…