Gwendolyn VanSant

“I feel like I’ve lived into being an African American woman… In a way, I was avoiding it as a young scholar wanting to be acknowledged as smart and capable just because I am, not because I was the Black girl in the room. It’s very different trying to fit in rather than being honored for my intrinsic value as a human being.”
The full interview will be available soon through Special Collections and University Archives at the UMass Amherst Libraries.
A full transcript of the interview can be accessed here.