An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted 2/1/2021
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"If anybody ran SNCC, it was Ruby Doris." --Stokely Carmichael
A reminder that February is Black History Month. Give some consideration to these lessons/biographies, and perhaps spread the word? Let's beat back some of the willful ignorance, my friends. Recent changes in Washington, D.C. don't magically address that --they never do. The more we learn, the more we realize just how much more there is to learn.
Today we examine the sadly too-short life of Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson, who holds the distinction of being the only woman to have served in the role of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)'s executive secretary (1966-1967). Born in 1942 Atlanta, Ruby graduated from Spelman College in 1958 and soon became actively involved in civil rights, including the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and various North Carolina sit-ins.
Significantly Ruby was present at the April 1960 meeting (along with Ella Baker, see Lesson #53 in this series) that would ultimately form the SNCC. In February 1961, along with Diane Nash (see Lesson #52 in this series), she was a participant in the Rock Hill, SC sit-in that was the first such spectacle to use the "Jail-No-Bail" tactic that would so effectively draw national --and ultimately international-- attention. Ruby also participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides and spent 45 days in a Mississippi jail, where prison guards brutalized her and the other activists.
Smith-Robinson served as a regional secretary for the Atlanta SNCC (among other things, organizing its motor fleet), and was ultimately named as the organization's national secretary in 1966 --the first and only woman in that role. Unfortunately Ruby's life was cut short by cancer; she died in 1967 at the age of 25.
Next page - Lesson 67: Unita Zelma Blackwell