She was the fifth of eight children, four of whom died as babies. She grew up with an older sister Natalie, an older brother Ralph as well as her younger sister named Grace. Young Brooks attended school at Davis Street school where her teachers remember her as being a normal quiet student who did her work. She later continued her education at Stanton high school on Ashley and Broad Street the only public high school for blacks at the time in Duval county. I always wanted to be a schoolteacher from the time I was in fifth grade” Brooks stated in the Solomon interview and she did just that. Around the age of sixteen, Sally Brooks begin many years of teaching Sunday school at Central Baptist Church. She sang in the choir for many years and was in Organist for the Sunday school for several years after graduating from Stanton high school in 1930. She went to Benedit college a small Baptist college in Columbia South Carolina which her parents also attended and completed a two year teaching training program. After graduating with degrees from both Bethune Cookman university as well as florida agriculture and medical university she became a teacher where she enjoyed 28 years as a teacher in the Duval county public school system were she taught elementary school students in high school history at Matthew Gilbert high