Hettie Simmons Love, the first African American to graduate from the prominent Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Simmons Love, who is 98 years-old, was interviewed by students through a project of the National Youth Foundation, a Black-led nonprofit dedicated to diversifying youth literacy. They turned the interview in an originally written and illustrated book titled,
Hettie Simmons Love: Penn Pioneer, that details her life story.
Simmons Love was born in 1923 in Jacksonville, Florida and attended the Boylan-Haven Boarding School. Upon graduation, she began her collegiate career at the Fisk University in Tennessee, where she thrived academically in mathematics. She joined Alpha Kappa Sorority, Incorporated and graduated before continuing her studies at Wharton.