Early Life and Education
Fredi Washington was born in Savannah, Georgia to Hattie and Robert T. Washington, who according to her sister Isabel, were both African American. Fredi was the second of their five children. Her mother, Hattie, died when Fredi was a girl.
As the oldest girl in her family, Fredi helped raise her younger siblings Isabel, Rosebud and Robert with the help of her grandmother, who the family called "Big Mama." After her mother's death, Fredi was sent away to a school for colored/minority girls in Philadelphia because motherless girls during this time were thought of as orphans. Her sister, Isabel, soon followed her.
At some point her father, Robert T. Washington remarried, but his second wife died while carrying his child. He later remarried a third time and produced four more children, giving Fredi a total of eight siblings.
While still in school in Philadelphia Fredi's family moved North to Harlem, New York in the Great Migration in an effort to seek better opportunities in the industrial north.
Fredi followed her family to Harlem. She quit school soon after to help financially provide for the family.
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