For over seventy years Gladys Barker Grauer advocated for the poor, the working class and the liberation of herself as a Black woman through the power of her art. Born during The Great Depression and just a mere 60 years after The Emancipation Proclamation, Gladys evolved as an artist using not only brush and paint, but weavings and found objects to create her art. Despite the odds against her she found the love of her life and despite the odds against her she has spoken truth to power not to create controversy, but to be true to herself. Even at 95 she defied being "a little old lady". Legacy remains a force and an example. Her story and the story of her determined efforts to sustain the work of Black women artists in Newark and the lives and careers she has touched are told here in: Being Gladys. —Ralph Patterson