Lumpkin was born Beatrice Shapiro on August 3, 1918, in
The Bronx, New York, to Morris Shapiro (born Avrom Hirschenhorn) and Dora Shapiro (born Ruhde Chernin), who were
Russian immigrants of Jewish descent. They were members of the
Jewish Labour Bund, a socialist organization in Russia. During the
1905 Russian Revolution, Beatrice's father was arrested and beaten, but escaped from prison and obtained a fake passport bearing his new name to move to the United States. He entered through
Ellis Island and eventually settled on the
Lower East Side of
Manhattan. Beatrice's mother, who had helped her future husband escape, went to join him in 1906, and they were soon married. They both worked in the clothing manufacturing industry; Dora worked in
Greenwich Village at the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory but was pregnant and not present during the
1911 fire at the factory. Their first child Max was born soon after, and the family moved to the Bronx where they owned and operated a
laundry business. Beatrice is the second of three children; her younger brother died when he was a child. She graduated from
James Monroe High School, where she joined the
National Student League and the
Young Communist League USA. She then attended
Hunter College to study history, earning a BA in 1939. After working as a factory worker for several years, she graduated from
Northeastern Illinois State College in 1967 with an
MST and from
Illinois Institute of Technology in 1974 with an MS. == Career and activism ==