Jenny Laster didn’t believe that building a legacy was about accumulating wealth. For the women, family and other Black people she inspired to get an education and pursue their passion, Laster believed her legacy should be about paving the way for those who will come after her.
Laster died Jan. 11 at the age of 86 after living her life as a role model for others, said family and friends in interviews with The Enquirer. A longtime Bond Hill resident, former English teacher and community leader, Laster prioritized building up the people around her and equipping them with the skills needed to succeed.
In Cincinnati, Laster graduated 500 people from a mentorship academy she founded and started a similar leadership program for the Urban League of Southwestern Ohio. Her work inspired countless people to follow their dreams instead of just getting through life, said her daughter Gina Laster.
Jenny Laster, on the far left, grew up one of five siblings in Meacham Park, Missouri, a then-segregated suburb of St. Louis.
“She was a sucker for a lost cause,” Gina Laster said. “She loved dealing with people who either felt they’d been written off or their lives had not gone the way they thought that it should.”
From early in her childhood, Jenny Laster was instilled with a love for learning. Laster’s mother and grandmother – both domestics in the segregated 1940s St. Louis suburb of Meacham Park – made it a point to set her up for a life unlike theirs and stressed the importance of an education.
“I mopped floors, so you won’t have to,” Laster’s grandmother often used to say, family recalled. That mantra quickly became Laster’s philosophy.
At the age of 4, Laster was taught to read by her grandmother, something her close friend and biographer Holly Jenkins-Livers remarked was not only rare for a child that young, but especially so given the times. And by 76, Laster received her doctoral degree from the Union Institute, achieving a lifetime goal she had set for herself and those she mentored.
After taking a job at the Transit Authority in the 1970s, Jenny Laster began leading trainings that would become a primary focus of hers later in life.
After being part of the first class of kids to integrate into her high school, Laster decided to become a teacher. She taught grade school and middle school throughout the ’60s and ’70s, using out-of-the-box ways to get kids to find learning (and reading) as exciting as she did. Rather than relying on the typical assigned novel, Laster brought popular magazines and news articles in for the kids, starting them off with leisure reading before bringing in the classics, her daughter said.
Laster eventually left St. Louis for a transit job in Washington D.C. and found her way to Cincinnati in 1982. She spent years working for a local firm, directing leadership trainings as a part of their human resources department while simultaneously growing her connections across the community. In time, she began to solely dedicate herself toward the community.
Her efforts have not only been recognized locally by the Cincinnati City Council and Urban League, but even by then-President Barack Obama, who commended her for her devotion to the community after receiving the President’s Volunteer Service Award.
Jenny Laster with then-Senator Barack Obama. Obama later awarded Laster with the President’s Volunteer Service Award.
Laster never stopped learning. Even in recent months, she had a book in her hand and was finding ways to continue to educate herself, her niece Traci Palmer said.
Her lifelong partner, C. Smith, credits Laster for his success. A talented photographer who’s shot photos of presidents, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others, Smith was honored as a part of the 2023 cohort of Great Living Cincinnatians.
When Smith met Laster, he was still working out of his house. Laster pushed him to get a studio and take his passion to the next level, just as Laster had done for many around her.
“I’m a product of her,” Smith said.
Laster’s funeral will be held on Saturday, Jan. 25, at New Visions United Methodist Church on 4400 Reading Road, Cincinnati. Visitation will be from 9 to 11 a.m. and services will begin at 11 a.m.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Jenny Laster, prominent figure in Cincinnati Black community, dies