Sister Souljah - Early Life

Early Life

Lisa Williamson was born in the Bronx, New York. She recounts in her autobiography that she was born into poverty and raised on welfare for some years. At age 10, she moved with her family to the suburbs of Englewood, New Jersey, a suburb with a strong African-American presence, a slight change from the big city feel of the Bronx. Englewood is also home to other famous Black artists such as George Benson, Eddie Murphy, and Regina Belle. There she attended Dwight Morrow High School.

Souljah disliked what American students were being taught in school systems across the country. She felt that the school systems purposely left out the African origins of civilization. Also, she criticized the absence of a comprehensive curriculum of African American history, which she felt that all students, Black and white, needed to learn and understand in order to be properly educated. She felt that she was being taught very little of her history, since the junior high school and high school left out Black history, art, and culture.

Souljah took a very active and special interest in learning everything she could about African history, which she felt was left out of the education curriculum in the United States purposely: "I supplemented my education in the White American school system by reading African history, which was intentionally left out of the curriculum of American students." From 1978 to 1981 she attended Dwight Morrow High School, which had a relatively even distribution of Black, Latino, and Jewish student enrollment and a majority-Black administration during the time of her studies. She was a legislative intern in the House of Representatives. Souljah was also the recipient of several honors during her teenage years. She won the American Legion's Constitutional Oratory Contest, a scholarship to attend Cornell University's Advanced Summer Program.

Throughout college she traveled, visiting Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Finland, and Russia. Her academic accomplishments were reinforced with first-hand experiences as she worked in a medical center in Mtepa Tepa, a village located in Zimbabwe, and assisted refugee children from Mozambique. She also traveled to South Africa and Zambia. She graduated from Rutgers University with a dual major in American History and African Studies. She became a well-known and outspoken voice on campus and active writer for the school newspaper. One of her noted campus initiatives was spearheading a campaign to bring Jesse Jackson to Rutgers to speak against the university's controversial investments in South Africa at the time, when divestiture from apartheid-era South Africa was a heated political issue. Sister Souljah was part of the Rutgers Coalition for Divestment, which successfully organized the Rutgers University administration to divest US$3.6 million in its financial holding companies doing business in racist, pre-Nelson Mandela South Africa. Sister Souljah and students across the state of New Jersey also organized a successful campaign to get the state of New Jersey to divest more than US$1 billion of its financial holdings in apartheid South Africa.

In 1985, during her senior year at Rutgers University, she was offered a job by Reverend Benjamin Chavis of the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice. She spent the next three years developing, organizing, and financing programs such as African Survival Camp, a 6-week summer sleep-away camp in Enfield, North Carolina. She also became the organizer of the National African Youth-Student Alliance and outspoken voice against racially motivated violence in cases such as Howard Beach, Yusuf Hawkins, and more.

Sister Souljah became a controversial figure during the 1990s as a frequent guest on American television and radio talk shows. Her comments drew attention and criticism due to their inflammatory nature concerning race relations. Her position of influence among Black Americans as a hip hop artist polarized groups and individuals both Black and white and led to public controversy.

Sister Souljah is married to Mike Rich. They have one child named Michael Jr.