Undertaken by the Schlesinger Library of Radcliffe College in 1976, this project records the memoirs of selected black American women aged seventy and over who had strong impacts on their communities through either their professional contributions or voluntary service.

The participants, who represent different areas of the United States, speak candidly of growing up during the early years of the struggle for racial equality, prior to the civil rights movement. They recall their childhood religious experiences and educational and cultural opportunities. Many offer family genealogies, including stories passed from generation to generation about slave and Indian forebears.

Pioneers in the ranks of business, social work, medicine, government, trade unions, athletics, and education, they emphasize the effect of race and gender on an individual's success.

There are new insights into the opportunities that World War II created for women and blacks in the professions, and extensive discussions of organizations which broadened the public awareness of black culture, such as the YWCA, Urban League, NAACP and National Council of Negro Women. Many notable leaders figure in these accounts, including Adam Clayton Powell, Alain Locke, Whitney Young, Meta Warrick Fuller, Mr. and Mrs. Booker T. Washington, Dr. George Washington Carver, Mrs. Jennie B. Moton, Mary McLeod Bethune, Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Mary Church Terrell.

Initial funding was provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, and later supplemental grants were received from the Blanchard Foundation, the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company, and the National Institute for the Aging. Complete sets of the transcripts have been deposited at thirteen college and university libraries and oral history offices throughout the country, of which the Columbia University Oral History Research Office is one.