Tell them we are rising : a memoir of faith in education / Ruth Wright Hayre and Alexis Moore ; foreword by Ed Bradley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hayre, Ruth Wright, 1910-1999.

Contributor:

Moore, Alexis, 1951-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hayre, Ruth Wright, 1910-1999.

Hayre, Ruth Wright.

African American women teachers--Biography.

African American women teachers.

Public schools--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.

Public schools.

Hayre, Ruth Wright, 1910-.

Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.

Local Subjects:

Hayre, Ruth Wright, 1910-.

Genre:

Autobiographies.

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xv, 206 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : J. Wiley & Sons, ©1997.

Summary:

Ruth Wright Hayre grew up in a close, genteel family that had prized learning since the days of the Civil War. At age ten, her grandfather, Richard Robert Wright, led by his remarkable mother, marched 200 miles to attend a school for emancipated slaves in a discarded railroad boxcar in Atlanta. When Union General Oliver Otis Howard came to the classroom and asked what message he should take back north, young Richard responded, in the famous exchange immortalized by poet.

John Greenleaf Whittier, "Sir, tell them we are rising." More than a century later, Ruth Wright Hayre, like her great-grandmother, would lead children on a life-changing journey to learning. After a distinguished career as a teacher, principal, administrator, college professor, and finally as a member and president of the Philadelphia Board of Education, Hayre's faith in the power of education inspired her to take on her greatest challenge - to create the "Tell Them We.

Are Rising" program. With that program she issued a challenge of her own to the sixth-graders in two schools in Philadelphia's grittiest neighborhoods: graduate from high school, and she would pay their college tuition. This is the story of the family and traditions that inspired that phenomenal gift, which took 116 boys and girls through six years of public school life on the wings of one woman's determination to make a difference in their lives.

Contents:

"Tell them we are rising." Root and branch: The family tree

My educational odyssey

A Philadelphia story

The climb to the boardroom

Not what we give but what we share

The leap of faith

Getting to know you

The mentors

The pregnancy problem

Mission accomplished

The risers

What I have learned

A last word

Index.

Notes:

Includes index.

Other Format:

Online version: Hayre, Ruth Wright, 1910- Tell them we are rising.

ISBN:

0471126799

9780471126799

OCLC:

36186850

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description