“I had a professor, Othello Maria Harris-Jefferson, who said: “Let no mountain stop you. You go around it, you go over, it or you go through it.” She taught me how to teach in her Methods in Teaching class. She also supervised my student teaching. Her mantra: “I don’t care where you go; I am preparing you to teach anywhere.” She and I were especially close; she was my instructor, my mentor, and my friend.” (Lifting Every Voice, Robertson p8.)
Biography | from Wikipedia
Othello Maria Harris-Jefferson (February 23, 1905 – September 26, 1988)[1] was an American educator and activist from Texas. From 1929 to the 1960s, she taught at Bluefield State Teachers College in West Virginia, where the Othello Harris-Jefferson Student Center is named in her honor.
Harris-Jefferson taught education, psychology, drama, and speech classes and was supervisor of elementary education at Bluefield State Teachers College (now Bluefield State University) in West Virginia, from 1929 until the 1960s.[4][6][7] In 1936 she helped start a graduate chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, at an event in her home.[8] She was also a member of The Links.[9]
Harris-Jefferson founded Bluefield State’s Touchstone Guild and Aesthetic Club, both for students interested in the theater. In time, the Aesthetic Club became more political in its interests, and it merged with the local NAACP chapter to work for civil rights causes.[10] In 1954, she made a series of lectures in the Dallas, Texas, area.[11] She helped to desegregate the lunch counters in Bluefield, and in 1965, she was honored by the Bluefield NAACP for her work.[4]
Portraits of Othello Maria Harris-Jefferson (right) and Phillip Jefferson (left)
[Photo credits: 1922 yearbook of Howard University, The Dallas Express (June 24, 1922)]
More information/resources
https://www.bluefieldwv.gov/community/page/orthello-maria-jefferson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othello_Maria_Harris-Jefferson
The William B. Robertson Initiative 
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