White `Soul Sister' Author Leaves Howard Univ. $800,000 In Will

Jet, Sept 3, 2001

Grace Halsell, a White author who in 1969 wrote the book Soul Sister after darkening her skin to gain an insight on how minority women survive in the U.S., left Howard University $800,000 in her will.

The book reached the best-seller list and Halsell remembered Howard be. cause of the wise counsel of Dr. John A. Kenney, Jr. He was the medical school dermatologist whom she consulted when she chemically turned her skin dark for the book.

A former speech writer for President Lyndon Johnson, Halsell began to write more books about minorities. These included Bessie Yellowhair, about life on a Navajo reservation in Arizona; The Illegals, about Mexicans trying to cross the U.S. border, and her own memoirs, In Their Shoes.

Estate representative, Robert Norberg, said Halsell never forgot "the kindness and wise counsel" of Dr. Kenney. "I believe that association was one of the major factors in her mind when she decided during the final year of her life to leave the bulk of her estate to Howard University," he added.