Florida Ruffin Ridley (born Florida Yates Ruffin; January 29, 1861 – February 25, 1943) was an African-American civil rights activist, suffragist, teacher, writer, and editor from
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, Massachusetts. She was one of the first black public schoolteachers in Boston, and edited ''
The Woman's Era
''The Woman's Era'' was the first national newspaper published by and for black women in the United States. Originally established as a monthly Boston newspaper, it became distributed nationally in 1894 and ran until January 1897, with Josephine ...
'', the country's first newspaper published by and for African-American women.
Early life and education
Florida Yates Ruffin was born on January 29, 1861, to a distinguished Boston family. Her father,
George Lewis Ruffin
George Lewis Ruffin (December 16, 1834 – November 19, 1886) was a barber, attorney, politician and judge. In 1869 he graduated from Harvard Law School, the first African American to do so. He was also the first African American elected to the ...
, was the first African-American graduate of
Harvard Law School and the first black judge in the United States. Her mother,
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, was a noted African-American writer, civil rights leader, and suffragist. The family lived on Charles Street in the
West End.
Ridley attended Boston public schools and graduated from
Boston Teachers' College in 1882. She was the second African American to teach in the Boston public schools (the first was
Elizabeth Smith, who taught at the
Phillips School
The Phillips School was a 19th-century school located in Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts. It is now a private residence. It is on the Black Heritage Trail and its history is included in walking tours by the Boston African American National ...
in the 1870s).
She taught at the Grant School from 1880 until her marriage in 1888 to Ulysses Archibald Ridley, owner of a tailoring business in downtown Boston. The couple moved to
Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1896, where they may have been the town's first African-American homeowners. Ridley was one of the founders of the Second Unitarian Church in Brookline.
She and her husband had a daughter, Constance, and a son, Ulysses A. Ridley, Jr.
Activism
Following in her mother's footsteps, Ridley became politically active as a young woman. She was involved in the early women's suffrage movement and was an anti-lynching activist.
With her mother and
Maria Louise Baldwin, Ridley co-founded several non-profit organizations. They founded the
Woman's Era Club (later renamed the New Era Club), an advocacy group for black women, in 1894. In 1895 they founded a group that later became the
National Association of Colored Women's Clubs
The National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC) is an American organization that was formed in July 1896 at the First Annual Convention of the National Federation of Afro-American Women in Washington, D.C., United States, by a merger of ...
. Speakers at their first meeting included the abolitionist and religious leader
Eliza Ann Gardner
Eliza Ann Gardner (May 28, 1831 – January 4, 1922) was an African-American abolitionist, religious leader and women's movement leader from Boston, Massachusetts. She founded the missionary society of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church ...
, noted African-American scholar
Anna J. Cooper, and Ella Smith, the first black woman to receive an M.A. from
Wellesley College. In 1918, Ridley, Ruffin, and Baldwin founded the League of Women for Community Service. The League, which still exists today, provided social, educational, and charitable services for the black community.
In 1923, Ridley conceived and directed an exhibit of "Negro Achievement and Abolition Memorials" at the
Boston Public Library
The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also the Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse'') of the Commonwea ...
on behalf of the League.
Ridley, who had a special interest in black history, also co-founded the Society for the Collection of Negro Folklore in 1890,
and founded the Society of the Descendants of Early New England Negroes in the 1920s.
Writing career
As a journalist and essayist, Ridley wrote mainly about black history and race relations in New England. She contributed to the ''
Journal of Negro History
''The Journal of African American History'', formerly ''The Journal of Negro History'' (1916–2001), is a quarterly academic journal covering African-American life and history. It was founded in 1916 by Carter G. Woodson. The journal is owned and ...
'', ''
The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', and other periodicals,
and also published a number of short stories. She was a member of the Saturday Evening Quill Club, a literary group organized by ''
Boston Post
''The Boston Post'' was a daily newspaper in New England for over a hundred years before it folded in 1956. The ''Post'' was founded in November 1831 by two prominent Boston businessmen, Charles G. Greene and William Beals.
Edwin Grozier bough ...
'' editor and columnist
Eugene Gordon in 1925. Fellow members included
Pauline Hopkins
Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (1859 – August 13, 1930) was an American novelist, journalist, playwright, historian, and editor. She is considered a pioneer in her use of the romantic novel to explore social and racial themes, as demonstrated ...
and
Dorothy West. The ''
Saturday Evening Quill'', the group's annual journal, published the work of African-American women writers and artists, including Ridley,
Helene Johnson, and
Lois Mailou Jones
Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1998) was an artist and educator. Her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum o ...
.
Ridley also edited ''
The Woman's Era
''The Woman's Era'' was the first national newspaper published by and for black women in the United States. Originally established as a monthly Boston newspaper, it became distributed nationally in 1894 and ran until January 1897, with Josephine ...
'', the country's first newspaper published by and for African-American women.
She died at her daughter's home in
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...
, on February 25, 1943.
Her home on Charles Street is a stop on the
Boston Women's Heritage Trail
The Boston Women's Heritage Trail is a series of walking tours in Boston, Massachusetts, leading past sites important to Boston women's history. The tours wind through several neighborhoods, including the Back Bay and Beacon Hill, commemorating w ...
.
Legacy
Ridley is included in the 2019 anthology ''
New Daughters of Africa
''Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present'' is a compilation of orature and literature by more than 200 women from Africa and the African diaspora, ...
'', edited by
Margaret Busby.
In September 2020, the
Florida Ruffin Ridley School
The Florida Ruffin Ridley School, formerly known as the Coolidge Corner School and the Edward Devotion School or Devo, is a public K-8 school located at 345 Harvard Street, Brookline, Massachusetts, United States. It is a part of Public Schools ...
in
Coolidge Corner
Coolidge Corner is a neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts, centered on the intersection of Beacon Street and Harvard Street. The neighborhood takes its name from the Coolidge & Brother general store that opened in 1857 at that intersecti ...
, Brookline, Massachusetts, was renamed in her honor.
References
External links
League of Women for Community Service
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ridley, Florida Ruffin
1861 births
1943 deaths
20th-century African-American women writers
20th-century American women writers
20th-century African-American writers
Activists for African-American civil rights
African-American history in Boston
African-American journalists
African-American suffragists
African-American women journalists
American suffragists
American women's rights activists
Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery
Harlem Renaissance
People from the West End, Boston
Women civil rights activists
Writers from Boston