In the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century a small group of women overcame personal and professional hardships to gain national prominence as educational reformers and social activists. This book takes a biographical look at Lucy Craft Laney, Mary McLeod Bethune, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Charlotte Hawkins Brown. The four women knew each other through the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. The other four women founded schools for African-American children, as well as being activists, lecturers, and suffragists, and the book includes interviews with students who came fro.