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Digital Short

Dr. Gina Tillis & Sheri Neely

From the Collection: Pain and Promise: Remembering the Fight for School Integration


Dr. Gina Tillis grew up in a multiracial, bilingual household in California. In high school, she moved to Texas where, generations earlier, her family helped start an all-Black school. Gina came to StoryCorps with Sheri Neely — her friend and fellow board member of the Memphis 13 Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for educational equity to honor the thirteen African American students who were the first to integrate the public schools in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1961. Together, they reflect on Gina’s educational experience and the legacy of desegregation.

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