| Summary: | Government administrator Barbara Lett Simmons was born on June 4, 1927 in Battlecreek, Michigan. Graduating from Battlecreek High School in 1945, she earned her B.A. degree from Western Michigan University in sociology and education. Simmons taught in the public schools in Detroit, Michigan from 1949 to 1962, and Montgomery County, Maryland from 1962 to 1965. Simmons was Education Coordinator for the Washington D.C. Poverty Program from 1967 until 1968, when she joined the Department of Education, where she remained until 1972. After leaving the Department of Education, she formed a staff development and training consulting firm. Simmons served on the D.C. Board of Education from 1973 until 1986. She created a cable television and radio program entitled Educationally Speaking in 1977. As an act of civil disobedience, she refused to cast her Electoral College vote in 2000, in protest of D.C.'s "colonial status". Simmons passed away December 22, 2012, at age 85.
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