A. Lenora Taitt-Magubane papers

A. Lenora Taitt-Magubane was born and raised in New York City, New York. She attended Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, graduating in 1961. As a student at Spelman, she became involved in the Civil Rights Movement. She was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR), which was comprised of students from the six historically black colleges and universities in Atlanta and came to be known as the Atlanta Student Movement. On March 9, 1960, the COAHR published "An Appeal for Human Rights," calling for an end to racial injustice in America and providing a justification for the sit-in campaign the students launched six days later. In addition to sit-ins to desegregate businesses in Atlanta, the COAHR also sponsored boycotts of segregated Atlanta businesses, such as Rich's Department Store. Taitt-Magubane was arrested in February 1961 during a lunch counter sit-in and spent two weeks in the Fulton County jail. She was also a member of the group of Freedom Riders who traveled from Atlanta to Albany, Georgia, in December 1961, to test the law banning segregation in facilities governed by the Interstate Commerce Commission. She was arrested outside the train station and spent two weeks in the Albany city and county jails.

Taitt-Magubane later received a master's of social work from Atlanta University and a doctorate in education from Columbia University Teacher's College (New York, New York). She was the program coordinator for the New York City office of the United States National Commission on the International Year of the Child in 1979. She has served as a social work and education officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Zambia and the United Nations Development Program in South Africa, the executive director of the New York Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, and the director of the Bronx Preventative Services for Steinway Child and Family Services.