Queen Mother Dr. Adelaide Sanford is the personification of the contemporary term #BlackGirlMagic.
The distinguished teacher, professor, historian, orator and freedom fighter’s educational legacy is as broad as her mega-watt smile. In 1965 (the same year she marched in Selma with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference), Dr. Sanford was appointed Assistant Principal of PS 21, The Crispus Attucks School. Two years later she became Acting Principal and for the next 19 years, Dr. Sanford took what was the lowest performing school in the district to the highest performing school in the state of New York. “There can be no excellence without cultural excellence” was (and is) her mantra to students and faculty on the importance of knowledge of self.
Dr. Sanford visited numerous prisons throughout her years as teacher and educator, going as far as to jump on train tracks to protest various community causes and even being strip-searched by police as an elder in defiance.
Bestowed the title of Queen Mother during a 1992 trip to the Upper Volta region of Ghana, Dr. Adelaide Sanford was “Brooklyn’s Finest” decades before the Notorious B.I.G and JAY Z verbalized the notion. Born, raised and educated in the borough, Dr. Sanford started her decorated teaching career at P.S. 28 on Herkimer Street in 1950. She was the first African-American teacher in the school who wasn’t a special education teacher, and spent lunchtimes confined to her classroom because the teachers’ cafeteria was for “whites only.”
One of Dr. Sanford’s most glowing achievements is the creation of the Board For The Education Of People Of African Ancestry [BEPAA] in 1990. BEPAA provides programs and services for students, parents and educational staff. “There was a Jewish Board, a Catholic Board, all these Boards—yet nothing to represent and stand for us. It had to be done,” Dr. Sanford explains.
The Queen Mother, sprightly as ever heading into her 91st year, leaves a lasting lesson on the importance of not only adorning your cultural heritage with pride, but carrying it forth for future generations.
