Lenora Fulani - Early Life

Early Life

The youngest daughter of a registered nurse and a railway baggage handler, Fulani was born Lenora Branch in 1950 in Chester, Pennsylvania. Her father died of pneumonia when she was 12. As a teenager in Chester in the 1960s, Fulani was active in her local Baptist church, where she played piano for the choir.

In 1967, Fulani was awarded a scholarship to study at Hofstra University in New York. She graduated in 1971, and went on to earn a master's degree from Columbia University's Teachers College In the late 1970s, she earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the City University of New York (CUNY). Fulani was a guest researcher at Rockefeller University from 1973–1977, with a focus on how learning and social environment interact for African-American youth.

While in college, she became involved in black nationalist politics, along with her then-husband Richard. Both had adopted the African tribal name Fulani as a surname when they married in a traditional West African ceremony. During her studies at City University, Fulani became interested in the work of Fred Newman and Lois Holzman, who had recently formed the New York Institute for Social Therapy and Research. Fulani studied at the Institute in the early 1980s.