Delany had earned a Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) degree from Columbia University in 1923, and was the second black woman licensed to practice dentistry in New York state.

[1] Annie Elizabeth Delany was born on September 3, 1891, in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Bessie was raised on the campus of St. Augustine's School (now University) in Raleigh, where her father was the vice principal and her mother, a teacher and administrator.

Throughout her life, Bessie Delany participated in many protests and marches, and encouraged civil rights organizers to meet at her and her brother's office.

It was developed into a Broadway play written and directed by Emily Mann in 1995 and a television film in 1999.