Tucker-Roberts, Dorothy

Dorothy Tucker-Roberts was born October 4, 1953; she grew up in rural Mississippi in the 50s and 60s, the daughter of parents who were active in the civil rights movement.  She was among the first Black students in Mississippi to attend racially integrated schools.  She remembers it as a challenging time; she and her siblings were bullied and harassed, and Dorothy recalls being in fights and altercations on almost a daily basis.  And the poor treatment was not limited to the students; the teachers could be cruel too, and Dorothy recalls being held back after her 8th grade year.  In high school Dorothy emerged as an athlete, and she became the first Black player on her high school girls’ basketball team.  She had to endure a lot, but as Dorothy says “…it made her the person she is today”.  The team won the championship one year, and Dorothy played her role as a key defensive player.  She went on to play at junior college and then Alcorn State.  All the while the civil rights movement and racial tensions ebbed and flowed, and Dorothy notes that many of the same divisions remain after all these years.  Still, she credits her parents with key life lessons that took her and her siblings to a new place in America, one that she and three of her siblings have shared with Crestwood students over zoom.  Dorothy’s interview was conducted by Scott Masters in June 2023.