Professor Martha Fenty, in a 1984 photo in The Evening Press
This post is part of a Black History Month series on SUNY Broome students, faculty and staff of color, who have been a valued part of the campus community since the college’s founding in 1946.
For two decades, Professor Martha Fenty shaped students’ lives at SUNY Broome, then known as BCC.
She developed her love of literature and her appreciation for the power of education early in life. In a 1984 article in The Evening Press, she remembered listening to her grandfather recite works of literature word for word. A native of Atlantic City, Fenty came from a long line of educators; her uncle was the first black principal in the city, while her father worked as an assistant principal and her aunt as a teacher.
“They instilled me with confidence and taught me a black person could never be suppressed if he or she was educated,” she told reporter Darren Dopp.
Fenty earned a bachelor’s degree in English at Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, and later her master’s degree in English from Binghamton University.
She began her career as a teacher in her hometown, moving to Endicott after marrying her husband David. One of the first black teachers in the Union-Endicott school district in the 1960s, she continued her teaching career at SUNY Broome, where she spent 20 years before retiring in 2001.
She started Broome’s first African-American literature course, and led students to conquer their fears in her public speaking class. Outside of the classroom, she developed and presented a pair of one-woman shows that drew on her love of African-American poetry.
With a talent for theater, Professor Fenty also starred in other local productions, such as Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf, and directed the BCC Verse Choir in a performance with the Fisk Jubilee Singers. She gave inspirational speeches at community events, such as a Martin Luther King Jr. Day service in Owego, and taught local children African folklore at the Discovery Center of the Southern Tier.
With a zest for life, she pursued many other areas of interest as well, playing both the cello and the piano, gardening and aiding numerous community organizations.
She passed away in 2007 at the age of 69.
