Third World Press

In 1947, nineteen-year-old Barbara Sizemore graduated from Northwestern University and left a job at Woolworth’s to become a substitute classroom teacher on Chicago’s South Side. Twenty-six years later, she was appointed superintendent of the Washington, DC, school system – the first African American woman to hold such a position in a major city. In 1992, she was appointed dean of the School of Education at DePaul University in Chicago, after a truly exceptional career in education that spanned more than five decades. More than three years after her death, her personal story is being released by Third World Press. Walking in Circles: The Black Struggle for School Reform, told in Sizemore’s own voice, is at once an autobiography, a history of educational activism, and a presentation of experiences, perspectives and insights. The book offers a detailed overview of an extraordinary person committed to finding a way to offer quality education to the Black children growing up in America’s cities.