Yancy enrolled as an undergraduate at Johnson C. Smith University during a time when Black students were organizing marches and sit-ins for racial equality.
“The students were already excited about making change,” recalls Yancy, who noticed educational disparities between Blacks and Whites at an early age.
“I had grown up in the South and I knew about differences in the schools,” says the Cherokee County, Ala., native. “I grew up with these White kids and I knew that their books were new and mine were generations old. I visited inside their schools and their facilities were not great, but ours were horrible.”
