Cassandra Grant was born in 1947 in New York City. Her family lived in the Lincoln Projects in Harlem, a haven for Black World War II veterans who were routinely denied better housing options available to White vets. The neighborhood was tightknit. To this day, Cassandra maintains friendships with kids she grew up with.

Cassandra’s parents were from Georgetown, South Carolina. When Cassandra went to South Carolina to visit her grandparents, she crashed up against the more overt racism still dominant there. Things like marching up to the front of the movie theater to buy a ticket—and being told she had to go to the back door. Things like hopping onto the rope swing in front of the general store—and getting called the N-word by the store owner. At age 73, Cassandra still feels the sting of those encounters.

One of Cassandra’s grandmothers was a teacher, and from early on, Cassandra set her sights on becoming an early childhood educator. In college, she grew her hair out and got yelled at by her mother. A semester later, however, she came home and found her mom had an Afro, too. The times were changing—but one topic remained off limits: sexuality. Neither Cassandra nor her mom knew how to talk about it. Cassandra had some boyfriends, but in college, she fell in love with a woman named Luvenia Pinson. Inspired by the Rev. Dolores Jackson and poet Audre Lord, Cassandra, Luvenia and others formed Salsa Soul Sisters Third World Project to support Black and Latina women and other women of color who loved women. The Salsa Soul Sisters met every Thursday night for protest, advocacy, and fun—but when they went to Greenwich Village bars like Bonnie and Clyde’s and The Duchess, they met with the same racism, a bit more slickly packaged, that Cassandra had experienced in the Deep South. Things like getting asked for multiple forms of ID, while White girls didn’t even get carded. The Sisters stuck together, fought together, and loved together. Today, they’re the oldest Black lesbian collective in the United States.

Throughout all the years of the Salsa Soul Sisters, Cassandra also pursued and accomplished a rich career as a teacher, administrator, and activist, working tirelessly to improve early childhood education at the city, county, and state level. Looking back today at the sexism, racism, classism, and homophobia she’s encountered and dealt with in her lifetime, Cassandra says, “We dealt with them in an honest way and a truthful way, in the best way we knew how. When Salsa women get together, we just give each other big hugs.”