Aaronetta Pierce's examples for community come with admiration from her parents, the late Dr. David Aaron Hamilton and Mrs. Clementine Lofties Hamilton. Both were educators in Nashville, Tennessee where they worked tirelessly to improve their community and to provide opportunities for others. 

Growing up in the forties and fifties in the classically segregated city of Nashville,TN where it was legally forbidden for African American citizens to attend the main library, the ballet, the symphony, and the theater; she credits the Historically Black Colleges of Tennessee State University, Fisk University, and Meharry Medical College with revealing the numerous and extraordinary cultural contributions and the artistic genius of African Americans. It was on these campuses that she participated in the arts with dancing lessons, piano lessons, and drama classes. Also on their campuses, she saw concerts by Marian Anderson and William Warfield, lectures by Thurgood Marshall, the Negro spirituals as sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and the paintings and murals of Aaron Douglas. Every day she saw committed and scholarly educators, community leaders, and dedicated volunteers. This exposure cemented her knowledge and respect for the rich legacy of African Americans.

As an adult in San Antonio in the early 1970’s, she recognized the absence of the art of African Americans in local museums and their sparse participation in many of the performing arts events. Even with integration, the inclusion of our cultural agenda had been slow to appear in most cities' major institutions nationwide. Conversations with her husband, Dr. Joseph A. Pierce, Jr., a retired San Antonio Anesthesiologist who was also a beneficiary of the Black College environment while growing up in Atlanta and Houston, revealed ways to draw on their knowledge and love of African American Art and Literature to make a difference. Going forward, they partnered together, even creating a business Premier Artworks, Inc. to promote the visual and literary arts of African Americans. Thereafter, more than half of the thirty or more boards on which Aaronetta has served have provided opportunities  to advance the awareness and inclusion of the cultural contributions of African Americans. She also became an outspoken advocate for African American Artists.

Some of her board involvements include nine years on the San Antonio Museum Association where in 1986 she led the way for the exhibition of the first National Survey Exhibition of African American Art in the city entitled “Hidden Heritage: The Art of African Americans” which was curated by the renowned David Driskell. She was the first African American to serve on and to chair the art committee of the San Antonio Area Foundation. In 1988, she was appointed by Mayor Henry Cisneros to chair a Blue Ribbon Committee on the Arts which resulted in the creation of the Department of Arts and Culture for the City Of San Antonio. She was appointed by Governor Mark White to a six-year term as the first African American Woman to serve on the Texas Commission on the Arts. She served four years as The National Director of The Arts of The Links, Inc., a national organization of over ten thousand African American women in 275 American cities. She was a charter board member and chair of the art committee of the Masters' Leadership Program, Las Casas Foundation, and The Texas Cultural Trust. She has twice chaired the Texas Medal of Arts Awards which recognizes Texas' great artists such as John Biggers, Phylicia Rashaad, Willie Nelson, The Alvin Ailey Dancers, Van Cliburn and many others. For twelve years she chaired the Art committee as a member of the Board of Trustees of Fisk University. She has been keynote speaker at several regional and state assemblies including the State of Tennessee's Arts Assembly and the Georgia O'Keefe Lecture Series at Fisk University. She has served on many panels and workshops including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Dallas Museum of Arts and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

While many of her service commitments centered around the arts, she also began 

to serve in more civic-community endeavors. One of her greatest honors came in 1986 when then Mayor Henry Cisneros requested  that she chair the first Martin Luther King Jr. City/County Commission. The commission along with numerous community volunteers and Mayor Cisneros’ committed leadership produced the first citywide celebration of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday with guests Rosa Parks and Rev. Joseph Lowery. It is now one of the largest in the nation.

Other boards include the Development Board of the University of Texas at San Antonio, The Institute of Texan Cultures, The Board of Visitors of Southwestern University, and the UTSA/ Ruth McClendon Scholars Advisory Board. She served almost twenty years on the board of United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County where she chaired the first Volunteers of the Year Awards and seventeen years on the San Antonio Spurs Foundation Board of Directors. She served a decade on the Board of Texas Bank which was for years, the only bank on the east side of San Antonio. She has twice chaired the Mayor’s Luncheon hosted by the United Negro College Fund. From 2015 to 2018 she served as chairperson of the Visiting Committee for Black Studies at the University of Texas at

Austin, one of the largest programs in the country and she continues to serve on the advisory board of the Institute of Texan Cultures and Visit San Antonio (formerly known as the Conventions and Visitors’ Bureau). She was a charter member of SA100, the International Women’s Forum, and 100 Black Women.

She attended Tennessee State University (where her father was the Dean of the School of Agriculture and Home Economics) for her freshmen and sophomore years where in 1960 she pledged Alpha Psi Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. In the fall of 1961 she transferred to The University of Iowa in Iowa city. She affiliated with Gamma Pi Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and graduated in 1963 with a major in the Social Sciences and a minor in English. From 1964 to 1967, she taught three years in San Antonio Independent School district at Riley Middle School (now Martin Luther King Academy), leaving to join her husband for a three-year military tour at Second General Hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. 

She is a life member of the NAACP as well as a life member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., an associate member of Jack and Jill of America, Inc., and an alumnae member of the San Antonio Chapter of the The Links, Inc. 

In 1984, she was inducted into the San Antonio Women's Hall Of Fame and in 1993 into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame. She is the recipient of the Girl Scout Trefoil Award in 1995, the Women in Communications' Headliner Award, the African American Reflections' Harriet Tubman Award, the J.C. Penney's Golden Rule Award, and The United Communities of San Antonio's Humanitarian Award (2007). For over twenty years, a barge on the San Antonio River bore her name. In 2010, she received the YWCA Women of the Decades Award and in 2011 she received the Legacy Award at The Freedom Dinner of the NAACP.  At the Renaissance with the Stars Dance Competition, also in 2011, she won First Place benefitting the San Antonio African American Fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation and the Philanthropy Award at La Prensa Newspaper Awards Ceremony. In 2016, she received the Distinction in the Arts Medal  form the City of San Antonio Department of Art and in 2017, she received the Legacy Award at the Tribute to Women Business Leaders by the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce  

Dr. and Mrs. have been married for fifty-four years and have two sons, Michael Arthur Pierce, a marketing manager, and Joseph Aaron Pierce, Esq. Vice President and General Counsel for the NBA Charlotte Hornets. Joe is married to Kama Bethel Pierce, Esq.  and they have three children, Marco, a college sophomore, Jasmine and Julian Pierce, high school students. Aaronetta recently wrote a “Letter to my Grandchildren” commenting of their family legacy and contemporary social, cultural, and political affairs. 

The Pierces have, together, tried to make a difference in the awareness and appreciation of the visual and literary arts of African Americans.