Anita Hammond was born in the 1930s, in the town of Seaford, Delaware. Seaford was a segregated, farming community at that time. Mrs. Hammond is a retired school teacher and she met a her husband, a widower who was also the first African American insurance actuary in Washington, D.C. His two children were in her elementary school class. They married in 1965 and purchased a home in Penn Branch neighborhood that same year, after having briefly lived in the Marshall Heights neighborhood. For decades since, Anita has also an active member of the Penn Branch Community Association. She successfully secured grant funding from during the Marion Barry Administration to conduct free youth programs for children in the community. She recalls the Penn Branch Civic Association being racially integrated while she served on the executive board and she has enjoyed their Annual Dinner Dances, over the years. Anita Hammond relocated to North Carolina after her husband died and sold her home to her daughter, Angela. However, she later returned to her Penn Branch residence and has remained there ever since.