My name was Betty Ann Kilby and I was thirteen years old when I sued the Warren County School Board in a fight to get an education beyond the seventh grade.
Now, my legal name is Betty Kilby Fisher Baldwin. All of these names are important to me.
I was Betty Kilby Fisher for forty-three years; A marriage that produced four children, nine grandchildren, five great-grands and still growing. I was Betty Kilby Fisher when I wrote my first book, "Wit, Will and Walls" to tell the story of how we forced compliance of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation and how I started at the lowest level of a fortune five hundred company to become the highest ranking African American female in 1986.
Today, I am Betty Kilby Baldwin married to Pastor David Baldwin. I am Co-Author of a second book, "Cousins". This book was written in alternating chapters with Phoebe Kilby, a descendant of the family that once owned and enslaved my family. We tell our story of how we reconciled the past and suggest a way to forge a healing path toward racial reconciliation for our family, friends and anyone who desires to live in an society of love and respect.
I became Dr. Betty Kilby Fisher Baldwin when I was the 2010 commencement speaker at Shenandoah University and received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.
Before you continue on in your journey of this site, I must pay honor, respect and gratitude to my parents; Catherine Ausberry and James Wilson Kilby. My father is the reason I have a story that matters. Together, through their teachings, they gave me the strength, courage, love and forgiveness to endure and succeed.
Welcome to this beloved community and thanks for visiting this site.
I hope you find it helpful and leave encouraged and inspired.
Features Include:
“Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the ‘fight with fire’ method … is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and creation of the beloved community…. Yes , love — which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one’s enemies — is the solution.”