Before teaching her first class, before writing her first book, and before Mississippi officially recognized the Brown v. Board of Education decision, a teenage girl freshly transplanted from the civil rights hotbed of San Francisco to Moss Point, Miss., wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper.

“The word ‘Negroe’ is spelled with a capital “N” and if you do not understand that, you can look in Webster’s dictionary under page such and such,” recalled the then-16-year-old, and now-syndicated columnist, economist, professor and activist Dr. Julianne Malveaux, BC ’74, M.A. ’76.

Since penning that letter, Malveaux went on to write countless columns, four books, and give commentary on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and the Howard University television show Evening Exchange. She’s appeared on panels with some of the biggest faces of contemporary civil rights issues—Cornel West, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Tavis Smiley—whom she now considers to be dear friends.