Sonia Sanchez born Wilsonia Benita Driver is a poet, playwright, activist, educator, and lecturer. She was born on September 9, 1934, in Birmingham Alabama. As a child, she was faced with many struggles from the loss of her mother at the tender age of two and her grandmother a few years later. Little after those losses she had developed a stutter that resulted in her becoming introverted. This had hindered her from expressing how she felt about the harsh treatments of black in the south that she felt sickened by. Even though her stutter had caused her to be closed off it had prompt her to read more and pay close attention to language and sound.
Sanchez moves to Harlem New York with her family in 1943. In 1955 she attended Hunter college where