Jessie Redmon Fauset

Jessie Redmond Fauset was an American editor, poet, essayist, novelist, and educator.

Fauset was born on April 27, 1882, in Fredericksville,Camden County, New Jersey. She was the daughter of Redmon Fauset, an African Methodist Episcopal minister, and Annie Seamon Fauset. Jessies mother died when she was a child and her father remarried. Fauset came from a large family mired in poverty. She attended the Philadelphia High School for Girls, and was its valedictorian and likely the schools first AfricanAmerican graduate. She wanted to study at Bryn Mawr College but they circumvented the issue of admitting a black student by finding her a scholarship for another university and so she continued her education at Cornell University. She graduated from Cornell University in 1905 with a degree in classical languages and was the first black woman in the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Fauset later received her masters degree in French from the University of Pennsylvania.

Source: Wikipedia