Gordon died three years ago at age 88, but her sister, Sophia Phillips Nelson, 93, attended the ceremony sponsored by the Westinghouse Alumni Association.
Gordon whose official transcript ranked her fourth in the 155-student class went on to become the accompanist for the National Negro Opera Company and played at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Hall. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, she became a high school German and English teacher and later was named by the governor as a senior adviser for English and foreign languages in the state Education Department.
But she never got over being deprived of her rightful status as valedictorian, her family says. "It was one of the most painful episodes of her life," says her niece, Gloria Wofford. "He erased her A and gave her a B because she was black."
