Denise Gragg Reid, ca. 2000s.

Born to Clarence Wiley Gragg and Eunice Hardin Gragg in 1955, Denise Gragg Reid attended the segregated Roberts School in Acworth in the first grade. In 1960, she moved to Atlanta with her family and attended Haugabrooks Academy, Collier Heights Elementary School, and Douglass High School. During high school, Reid took part in a work program facilitated by Sears, where she started her career. She later took a job overseeing contracts for Hewlett-Packard. Reid has two children, Anthony and Samantha, and four grandchildren. Today, she lives in her parents’ former home in Atlanta’s Crescendo Valley neighborhood.