Vinnette Justine Carroll was an American playwright, actress, and theatre director. She was the first African-American woman to direct on Broadway, with her 1972 production of the musical Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope. Until Liesl Tommy's 2016 nomination for Eclipsed, Carroll was the only African-American woman to have received a Tony Award nomination for direction.

The Wadleigh High School for Girls, which was established by the NYC Board of Education in 1897 and moved into its new building in Harlem in September 1902 It was the first public high school for girls in New York City. At the time, public secondary education for girls was considered highly novel and perhaps a bit scandalous. Newspapers considered it newsworthy enough to devote many stories to describing classroom scenes of girls receiving “higher” education. The building is now shared among several schools including the Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts, the Frederick Douglass Academy II, and Success Academy Harlem West.