February 10, 2021
From the time she was a little girl, Rosa Jinsey Young knew she wanted to be a teacher. Even though there were no schools for black children in her community, she wanted to help “her people” learn.
A small child with frequent bouts of illness, Young was an unlikely heroine. Born in 1890, the fourth of 10 children, Young grew up in Rosebud, in the heart of Alabama’s Black Belt, a swath of counties cutting through the center of the state with the blackest soil and the largest old plantations. Her parents were farmers; her father also preached as a circuit rider for the African Methodist Episcopal Church.