Sarah's Story e-newsletter sign-up

Black Child Development Institute of Greensboro, Inc. (BCDI-G) was founded in 1978 by Greensboro resident Sarah Walden Herbin.  Sarah Herbin was born on September 15, 1916, in Concord, North Carolina, the daughter of a minister and a teacher. She graduated from William Penn High School in High Point, and went on to study music and English at Bennett College in Greensboro.  Herbin did her graduate work in music at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor before returning to North Carolina, where she taught English and music in Graham, Siler City, and Greensboro.  Following five years in New York City, Mrs. Herbin moved back to Greensboro and was hired in 1950 as a bookkeeper at Bennett College.  In 1953 she accepted a secretarial position with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Four years later she was promoted to director of the organization's Merit Employment Program.  In this position she was responsible for placing African Americans in nontraditional jobs.

Sarah Walden Herbin remained at the AFSC until 1963, when she accepted a position in the North Carolina Department of Administration as Employment Service Representative. This made Mrs. Herbin the first Black member of Governor Terry Sanford's cabinet.  At the end of Sanford's tenure in 1965, she became a grant officer for the North Carolina Fund in Durham.  she later moved to Washington, D.C. in 1969, where she co-founded the National Black Child Development Institute.

Mrs. Herbin returned to Greensboro and after hearing about 36 children, all African American, who were going to be retained for the upcoming school year, made a call to action by asking "Who If Not Us Will Advocate For Our Children". Mrs. Herbin established the Greensboro Black Child Development office in 1978.  Mrs. Herbin and her friends worked with providing free educational services for the children over the summer, and at the beginning of the school year they were all ready to move to the next grade level.  When the school system refused to promote the children, Mrs. Herbin taught the parents how to advocate for their children.  By the end of the school year, all the students successfully passed to the next grade level.  Thirty-one of the thirty six students eventually graduated from college.