Ruth Mary Reynolds

Ruth Mary Reynolds
The arrest of Nationalists (L to R) Carmen María Pérez Roque, Olga Viscal Garriga and Ruth Mary Reynolds.
Born	February 29, 1916 Terraville, Lawrence County, South Dakota
Died	December 2, 1989 (aged 73) South Dakota
Political party	Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Movement	Puerto Rican Independence

Ruth Mary Reynolds (February 29, 1916 – December 2, 1989) a.k.a. "The American/Puerto Rican Nationalist" was an American educator, political and civil rights activist who embraced the ideals of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. She was incarcerated in La Princesa Prison for sedition during the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s. As the founder of "American League for Puerto Rico's Independence," she devoted many years of her life to the cause of Puerto Rico's independence from the United States after her release from prison.

Reynolds was born in 1916 in Terraville, Lawrence County, South Dakota, a mining town in the Black Hills. As a young woman, she taught high school for two years, including one year of teaching on an Indian reservation. After earning a Masters degree from Northwestern University, she relocated to New York City, where she joined the Harlem Ashram, an interracial pacifist community dedicated to the development of non-violent strategies for social change.

The Ashram was founded by Ralph Templin and Jay Holmes Smith in 1940. It was a religious, pacifist group based on the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence. In the interest of promoting interracial good will, the members of the Ashram associated themselves with the members of a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood in the city. Reynolds and her associates organized games and activities for the young people who lived in East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem.