Ruby Dee (1922-2014) was an actor who fought for racial justice in Hollywood and beyond. She joined forces with her husband to become a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s activist was an actor who fought for racial justice in Hollywood and beyond. She joined forces with her husband to become a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement. Let’s talk about Ruby Dee.
Ruby Ann Wallace was born on October 27, 1922 in Cleveland, Ohio. After her mother left the family, Ruby was raised primarily by her father, Marshall, and her stepmother, Emma. Ruby spent much of her childhood in Harlem at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. Thanks to the influence of her stepmother, from a young age Ruby absorbed the culture and work of Black intellectuals, from the writings of W.E.B Du Bois to the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar. In high school, Ruby submitted her own poems to the New York Amsterdam News, a Black weekly newspaper. Ruby enjoyed writing, but caught the acting buzz after she read a play aloud to her classmates and received their applause.
In 1941, Ruby married Frankie Dee Brown, a liquor salesman. They divorced four years later, but she kept his last name as her stage name.
Ruby attended Hunter College, where she joined the American Negro Theater. In 1945, she graduated with a degree in French and Spanish.
In 1946, Ruby landed her first Broadway role in Jeb, a play which addressed race in post-World War II America. While she was hired as an understudy, the director was so impressed by her performance that she replaced the original actress. On set, Ruby fell in love with lead actor Ossie Davis, and they married in 1948. Together they had three children, including blues singer Guy Davis.
As a Black woman, Ruby began her film career playing minor, typecast characters. But throughout her career, she fought to change the narrative of what a Hollywood star should look like.
Her big break came in 1950 when she starred opposite Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story. The film addressed racial tensions and won critics over — even in the era of racial segregation. That same year, Ruby appeared in an uncredited role in No Way Out, the story of a Black doctor confronted with racism. The movie directly addressed racism, and a number of theaters in the Deep South refused to show it.
In 1959, Ruby landed the role of Ruth Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s revolutionary play, “A Raisin in the Sun.” It was the first play written by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway, and the first play with a Black director on Broadway. Critic Edith Oliver wrote of Ruby’s performance: “Is there a better young actress in America, or one who can make everything she does seem so effortless?”
During the 1960s, Ruby and her husband Ossie were prominent activists in the Civil Rights Movement. Ruby was a member of a number of racial justice organizations, including the NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality.
In 1963, Ruby hosted the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. famously delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. The National Urban League honored Ruby and Ossie with the Frederick Douglas Award for their leadership in the Civil Rights movement.
Ruby’s work to change the roles available to her on stage and screen eventually paid off. In 1965, Ruby starred as Kate in Taming of the Shrew and Cordelia in King Lear, making her the first African American woman to play major parts in the American Shakespeare Festival. In 1968, Ruby became the first Black actress to have a prominent role in the soap-opera Peyton Place.
Two years later, she played the role of Lena in a production of Athol Fugard’s Boesman and Lena— a story that tackled the effects of apartheid in South Africa. In it, Ruby portrayed an independent woman free of the constraints of having to support her husband. She called it the greatest role she’d ever had.
In her later career, she appeared in a number of television shows, including Golden Girls and China Beach. Ruby was nominated for eight Emmys, and earned one for Decoration Day in 1991.
Ruby and Ossie worked together on screen and off. Ossie wrote and directed the play PURLIE VICTORIOUS, which Ruby starred in, and they both starred in the film adaptation, GONE ARE THE DAYS! They hosted a show on PBS “With Ossie and Ruby”, and later won a Grammy for their autobiography with the same title. Together they appeared in four of Spike Lee’s films, including Do the Right Thing—a film about Brooklyn’s racial tensions. New York Times critic Vincent Canby wrote: “Miss Dee and Mr. Davis are not only figures within the film but, they also seem to preside over it, as if ushering in a new era of Black filmmaking.”
Ruby and Ossie were awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1995 and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004.
In 2007, Ruby won the Screen actors Guild award for her portrayal of Mama Lucas in American Gangster. She and Ossie were also awarded the Screen Actors Guild’s Life Achievement Award. At the time, the president of the organization said, “For more than half a century, they have enriched and transformed American life as brilliant actors, writers, directors, producers, and passionate advocates for social justice, human dignity, and creative excellence."
In 2014, Ruby died in New Rochelle, New York, at the age of 91. Her ashes were interred in the same urn as Ossie’s. It was inscribed, “In this thing together.”
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Talk to you tomorrow!