Beverly Joyce Bailey was born in Macon, Georgia, on December 22, 1950, the youngest of seven children.

At the age of 22, she graduated from Morris Brown College in Atlanta with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology.

After completing the police academy, she spent several years performing night foot patrols in high-crime areas.

In 1979, she was promoted to affirmative action specialist and then to director of public affairs in 1980, where she handled media inquiries regarding the Atlanta child murders.

[1][2][3] In 2010, Harvard was nominated by President Barack Obama to become the United States Marshal for the Northern District of Georgia, a position that she held until 2019.