Although Barbara and her sister grew up in the northern United States, her family retained its southern roots and traditions from rural Georgia. Her mother's family was one of the millions of African-American families that participated in the Great Migration in the first half of the 20th century to escape the South's oppressive racial caste system and improve their economic circumstances. Barbara describes her identity as that of a southern woman and credits her family's experience with intense racial trauma in Georgia as a catalyst for her activism. At the same time, she does not exonerate the north from intense racial discrimination, documenting several formative incidents of anti-Blackness that she and her sister experienced. During one such incident, she and her sister brought homemade cookies to their summer French class, which was taught by an unabashedly racist woman. None of the white children in the class ate any of the cookies. Despite obvious racial discrimination, however, both Barbara and Beverly excelled academically.