Florida Ruffin Ridley
| Florida Ruffin Ridley | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Florida Ruffin January 29, 1861 Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
| Died | February 25, 1943 (aged 82) Toledo, Ohio, United States |
| Occupation | Teacher, writer |
| Known for | Civil rights activism |
Florida Ruffin Ridley (January 29, 1861 – February 25, 1943) was an African-American civil rights activist, suffragist, teacher, writer, and editor from Boston, Massachusetts. She was one of the first black public schoolteachers in Boston, and edited the Woman's Era, the country's first newspaper published by and for African-American women.
Florida Ruffin Ridley was born on January 29, 1861, to a distinguished Boston family. Her father, George Lewis Ruffin, 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 in the 1870s.) She taught at the Grant School from 1880 until her marriage in 1888 to Ulysses A. Ridley, owner of a tailoring business in downtown Boston. The couple moved to Brookline, Massachusetts in 1896, where they were 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.
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; speakers at their first meeting included the abolitionist and religious leader, Eliza Ann Gardner, noted African-American scholar Anna J. Cooper, and Ella Smith, the first black woman to receive an M.A. from Wellesley. 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 on behalf of the League.
...
Wikipedia