Edna was born in Augusta, Arkansas. She went to the University of Arkansas and moved to Norfolk, Virginia after graduation.

On living in the South: “It was the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. By that time you could sit on the bus and go to restaurants. My father would talk a lot about how things were. If you went to the movies, you had to sit upstairs. If you got on a bus, you had to go to the back even if there were empty seats in the front. My parents tried to keep us sheltered. The thing for them was education and that you are as good as anybody. So don’t ever think that you aren’t.”

“We lived on a farm and right behind us lived this family of white people. We were more educated than they. And the lady would bring her children over for us to help them learn to read. We were all children in school, but they went to their school and we went to our school. One day my father came home, and the lady was there in the kitchen talking to my mother and he really went off about ‘Don’t let that white woman in here anymore because you don’t know what could happen if somebody comes by and sees her here.’ He was afraid that if the lady was there and a white man came by, they would think that the lady was there for him and then they would probably kill him.”