Last year, during a visit to Lavietes Pavilion at Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., I spotted a woman on a basketball team photo dated 1924 and wondered, “Who is the lone black woman in this picture?” I must admit I was surprised to learn that a woman of color attended Radcliffe during that time, but I also thought that she must have been someone special. Little did I know how remarkable this woman was.

At Harvard, one can imagine the rich history and tradition in each square foot of land the illustrious institution sits upon. At one time or another, some of the most famous scholars and leaders of our nation walked the hallowed grounds in Cambridge. Of course the face of Harvard has changed dramatically over the years, but I could not help but imagine what it was like 81 years ago when women were not permitted to attend Harvard, and a black Charleston, S.C. native entered into Radcliffe College, full of promise and hope not only for her family, but for an entire race of people.

Being accepted into a college or university is never a small feat for anyone, but for an African-American during the 1920s, opportunities for higher education were virtually impossible at white institutions.

Which makes the story of Dr. Theodora Roosevelt Boyd all the more extraordinary.

Theodora was born to James and Jeannette Boyd on June 6, 1906 in Charleston. Her parents found out early on that their daughter was an extremely gifted child. She was educated in the public schools of Newton, Mass., and by 1923, Theodora had been afforded an opportunity few African-Americans would be able to partake in, and she seized it with fervor and great determination.

It was only three years after women had won the right to vote, the jazz age was catching on, and the Harlem Renaissance was producing a growing number of talented black writers, poets, and musicians. That was when the young Theodora would enter Radcliffe, blazing an indelible trail.

Despite some of the advances made by women and African-Americans, it was still 1923, and the plight of women and minorities in general was severely ignored. Theodora was faced with social taboos, racism, sexism, and the biased views of other African-Americans, yet she remained focused and driven.

Majoring in Romance Languages, Theodora excelled academically, and listed the Spanish club as one of her extracurricular activities. But there was also another area in which she excelled – athletics.

She took up basketball and field hockey, in both of which she was outstandingly skilled. Members of the "Seven Sisters," competing against one another, were comprised of Radcliffe, Barnard (New York, N.Y.), Bryn Mawr (Bryn Mawr, Pa.), Mount Holyoke (South Hadley, Mass.), Smith (Northampton, Mass.), Vassar (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.) and Wellesley Colleges (Wellesley, Mass.). A brief statement about her in the 1927 yearbook, below her photo, read:

After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1927, Theodora began a teaching career that would span 50 years starting at Clark College in Atlanta, Ga. Spending two years there, she continued on at Radcliffe, earning a Master’s in 1930. She headed back out into the teaching world, this time, to Texas Teacher’s College in Tyler, Texas.

Dr. Miriam DeCosta-Willis, now among the nation's foremost scholars on Afro-Hispanic studies, made Dr. Boyd's acquaintance as a young girl, but would later cross paths in 1970. She considered Theodora a close friend, but was unaware of many of her other accomplishments.

“Dr. Boyd was really ahead of her time,” DeCosta-Willis said. “The fact that she went to a predominantly white institution, and the fact that she got her college degree in the 1920s was still fairly rare.”

Also a South Carolina native, DeCosta-Willis knows first-hand the pressures Theodora faced trying to integrate established white institutions. DeCosta-Willis integrated the Westover School in Middlebury, Conn., in the 1940s and was one of few African-Americans attending Wellesley in the 1950s.

“It was hard in the '50s, desegregating these institutions and being the only black or one of two or three, it was hard for me. But Dr. Boyd came along 30 years earlier, you can imagine just how much more difficult that was.”