Black leadership

Coming from a majority Black city to the cold North, Collier settled in at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “I think I was one of 35 or 40 Black master’s students in the whole school,” she said. There, Collier first began doing what has become somewhat of a life’s calling: creating community.

The death of Vernon Jordan reminds us that during the Civil Rights Movement, it was not uncommon for young Blacks to assume major leadership positions.