Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson (April 25, 1942 – October 7, 1967) worked with the

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segrega ...

(SNCC) from its earliest days in 1960 until her death in October 1967. She served the organization as an activist in the field and as an administrator in the Atlanta central office. She eventually succeeded James Forman as SNCC's executive secretary and was the only woman ever to serve in this capacity. She was well respected by her SNCC colleagues and others within the movement for her work ethic and dedication to those around her. SNCC Freedom Singer Matthew Jones recalled, "You could feel her power in SNCC on a daily basis".

Jack Minnis Jack Minnis (1926-2005) was an American activist, and the founder and director of opposition research for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the Civil Rights Movement era. Minnis researched federal expenditures and state and local su ...

, director of SNCC's opposition research unit, insisted that people could not fool her. Over the course of her life, she served 100 days in prison for the movement.

Early life

This hard-nosed administrator and legendary activist was born in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, on April 25, 1942 and spent her childhood in Atlanta's Summerhill neighborhood, the oldest black community in the city. She was the second oldest of seven children born to Alice, a beautician, and J. T. Smith, a furniture mover and Baptist minister. The Smith children lived a comfortable existence in their separate Black world. Their parents made their earnings off of Black patronage rather than from the support of whites, which showed Ruby from a young age the power and independence that Black people could have. They had strong adult support, and they had their own churches, schools, and social activities. No matter how insulated they were, however, the reality of American

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

and segregation intruded from time to time. Smith-Robinson recalled her feelings about segregation in those early years saying, "I was conscious of my Blackness. Every young Negro growing up in the South has thoughts about the racial situation." Her sister Catherine remembers that even as an adolescent, Ruby said to her, "I know what my life and mission is…It's to set the Black people free. I will never rest until it happens. I will die for that cause." Ruby also remembered her reaction to the white people she came in contact with when she was a youngster: "I didn't recognize their existence, and they didn't recognize mine....My only involvement was in throwing rocks at them". A specific encounter she had with segregation as a young girl was on a summer day when she and her sister went to the drugstore for an ice cream cone. The clerk used his hands to grab her cone and handed it to her. She replied saying, "I won't be eating that one" because she knew that they used tissues to grab cones for the white customers. Ruby's mother encouraged her to study hard and to participate in extracurricular activities rather than help with the household work such as cooking. At the age of 16, Ruby graduated from Price High School and went on to Spelman College, one of the most prestigious Black colleges in the United States.

Atlanta Student Movement

Young Ruby, like many young Black Americans of her generation, became convinced that change was possible. When Ruby Smith entered Spelman College in 1959, she quickly became involved in the

Atlanta Student Movement The Atlanta Student Movement was formed in February 1960 in Atlanta by students of the campuses Atlanta University Center (AUC). It was led by the Committee on the Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR) and was part of the Civil Rights Movement. Hi ...

after being inspired by the Greensboro North Carolina lunch counter sit-in, which prevented blacks from eating at the same lunch counter as white people did during her sophomore year. She participated in many sit-ins and was arrested a few times after getting involved in the Atlanta Student Movement. She regularly picketed and protested with her colleagues in a bid to integrate Atlanta. In the summer of 1960, though many students involved in the Atlanta Student Movement were no longer on campus, Ruby continued to organize. This included initiating an economic boycott and kneel-ins at whites churches. The slogan she created for the boycott was "have integration will shop, have segregation will not." Even on days when no one else was there to protest, she picketed outside the A&P grocery store alone.

Involvement in SNCC

The first SNCC meeting Ruby attended was in February 1961. She had before avoided the organization since there seemed to be a stronger focus on strategy and planning rather than participating in actual protests. However, at this meeting they talked about the jail-versus-bail issue, specifically in relation to a group of students in Rock Hill arrested for demonstrating yet refusing to post bail. SNCC decided to send a delegation, and Ruby ended up going. The group was arrested and sentenced to 30 days in prison. This was significant since it was the first time that she took part in civil rights activities outside her immediate community. She became involved in the national movement and joined activities sponsored by the fledgling SNCC such as

Freedom Rides Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions '' Morgan v. Virginia ...

, community-action organizing, and voter registration drives and was arrested many times for participating in those activities. In the spring of 1961, Smith left her position as executive secretary of the Atlanta Student Movement to become the full-time southern campus coordinator for SNCC. This meant dropping out of college her junior year although she had intentions of returning. Once she joined the

Freedom Riders Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions ''Morgan v. Virginia' ...

, she immediately took part of a ride that was going from

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...

, to

Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 202 ...

, on May 17, 1961. However, she was violently attacked and beaten in Montgomery and was arrested in

Jackson, Mississippi Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the Capital city, capital of and the List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, Mississippi, ...

, for traveling inflammatory. After the arrest, she used "jail no bail" by accepting 45 days in

Parchman State Prison Mississippi State Penitentiary (MSP), also known as Parchman Farm, is a maximum-security prison farm located in unincorporated Sunflower County, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region. Occupying about of land,Martin Luther King Jr. When she returned, she continued her activity in the Atlanta Student Movement. Since lunch counters had been desegregated, they turned their attention to hospitals. At one demonstration, the protesters walked in through the white entrance. The receptionist told them to leave and added, "Besides you're not sick anyway." Ruby walked right up to the desk, looked her in the eye, and then vomited on the counter. Then she asked, "Is that sick enough for you?" By 1963, she had become SNCC's administrative secretary and a full-time member of the central office staff working as a day-by-day organizer, financial coordinator, and administrator. She was in charge of the summer voter registration project in Mississippi and was responsible for the Sojourner Truth motor fleet, which provided civil rights workers transportation. The following year, she argued that blacks must maintain the dominance of the SNCC after the organization had become dependent on whites for financial and political help. She suggested that they recruit southerners and set a limit on how many northerners they accepted since they sometimes caused tension within SNCC. One of her coworkers believed she "had been anti-white for years," although others dispute this since later on in her involvement in SNCC, one of her closest friends was white. She maintained much of the black nationalist agenda without being anti-white. Though there were problems with sexism within SNCC just as in society and though men usually had the final say in decisions, Ruby challenged all the typical notions of what a female should be since she held a leadership position within SNCC where she exercised power over men. Commenting on her self-confidence and leadership ability Stokely Carmichael said, "She was convinced that there was nothing that she could not do…she was a tower of strength." For many years, Robinson was erroneously considered the author of the anonymously submitted paper "The Position of Women in SNCC" from the 1964 SNCC staff meeting in Waveland, Mississippi, however, the four authors of that paper have since come forward. Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson soon became a legend within SNCC with most early SNCC members being able to recount at least one Ruby Smith-Robinson story. Julian Bond remembered that when a delegation of SNCC staff was preparing to board a plane for Africa in the fall of 1964 to observe the success of the nonviolence technique, an airline representative told them the plane was overbooked and asked if they would wait and take a later flight. This angered Ruby Smith-Robinson so much that without consulting the rest of the group she went and sat down in the jetway and refused to move. They were given seats on that flight. This innovative and determined spirit displayed in her activism was also part of her administrative demeanor. SNCC was particularly drawn to Guinea because it was a symbol of freedom and power to African Americans. They were the only country in Africa under French colonial rule that chose immediate independence rather than maintaining a political association and continuing to receive aid. While in Guinea, they met with government officials and even the president. After Ruby came back from Africa, she devoted herself to Black Nationalism. In 1964, while still devoting much of her time to SNCC, she married Clifford Robinson and in 1965 had a son, Kenneth Toure Robinson, named in honor of the president of Guinea. She returned to work just two weeks after giving birth. During the same period, she also graduated from Spelman with a bachelor's degree in physical education. Balancing a marriage, a child, and movement work was a challenge that left little to no time for her to rest. To deal with her frustration and anxiety, she kept empty Coca-Cola bottles in her office, which she would throw against the wall, sweep up their remains, then get back to work. In May 1966, replacing James Forman, she was the first woman elected executive secretary. A forceful administrator, Smith-Robinson was responsible for providing logistics and support for the many community organizing initiatives SNCC began in the south and north during the group's Black Power campaign. At the same time of her election, Stokely Carmichael was voted in as chairman, which transformed the organization since he was perceived as militant and anti-white.

Death

In January 1967, her health began to decline precipitously around the same time as the splintering of SNCC, and she was admitted to a hospital. She suffered for ten months from a rare blood disease, and in April of that year she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She died on October 7, 1967, aged 26. One of her co-workers claimed, "She died of exhaustion…she was destroyed by the movement." She is buried in

South-View Cemetery South-View Cemetery is a historic African-American-founded cemetery located approximately 15 minutes from downtown Atlanta, Georgia. An active operational cemetery on over 100 acres of land, it is the oldest African-American cemetery in Atlanta, ...

in Atlanta.

Legacy

She is the subject of a biography by Cynthia Fleming, entitled ''Soon We Will Not Cry'' (1998), which, as one reviewer observes, shows "the conflicts and contradictions that Ruby Doris Robinson and her co-workers experienced within themselves and their organization. Particularly compelling is Fleming's depiction of the shifting gender roles among the black activists within SNCC."Marilyn Dell Brady
"The Complexity of a Black Woman Activist's Life: The Story of Ruby Doris Smith Robinson"
(review of ''Soon We Will Not Cry''), H-Net.

References

Other sources

*http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/chronology/details/660616.htm *Garland, Phyl. "Builders of a New South," ''Ebony'' (August 1966) *Jones, Matthew. Personal interview (April 24, 1989) *Minnis, Jack. Personal interview (November 4, 1990).

External links

SNCC Digital Gateway: Rudy Doris Smith Robinson
Documentary website created by the SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University, telling the story of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and grassroots organizing from the inside-out
FBI Docs
Ruby Doris Smith Robinson FBI File {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith-Robinson, Ruby Doris 1942 births 1967 deaths Spelman College alumni Freedom Riders Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Burials at South-View Cemetery Deaths from cancer in the United States