History Remarkable Women

Florida Ruffin Ridley (Remarkable Women #63)

Early life

Florida Yates Ruffin was born in Boston on January 29, 1861, to George Lewis Ruffin and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin. Her father was the first African-American graduate of Harvard Law School and the first black judge in the United States, while her mother was a noted African-American writer, civil rights leader, and suffragist. The Ruffins lived on Charles Street in the West End.

Florida attended various Boston public schools and later graduated from Boston Teachers’ College in 1882. She was the second African American to teach in Boston public schools.

Florida taught at the Grant School from 1880 until her marriage in 1888 to Ulysses Archibald Ridley, owner of a tailoring business in downtown Boston.

In 1896, the couple moved to Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1896, where they were among the town’s first African-American homeowners.

Florida was co-founder of the Second Unitarian Church in Brookline. Florida and Ulysses had two children, a daughter, Constance and a son, Ulysses A. Ridley, Jr.

Activist

Following in her mother Josephine‘s footsteps, Florida 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, Florida co-founded several non-profit organizations. In 1894, they founded the Woman’s Era Club, an advocacy group for black women. 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 College.

In 1918, Josephine, Florida and Maria Louise 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, Florida conceived and directed an exhibit of “Negro Achievement and Abolition Memorials” at the Boston Public Library on behalf of the League.

Florida was especially interested in black history and co-founded the Society for the Collection of Negro Folklore in 1890. She also founded the Society of the Descendants of Early New England Negroes in the 1920s.

Writer

As a journalist and essayist, Florida wrote mainly about black history and race relations in New England. She contributed to the Journal of Negro History, The Boston Globe and other periodicals, as well as publishing a number of short stories.

Florida was a member of the Saturday Evening Quill Club, a literary group organized by Boston Post editor and columnist Eugene Gordon in 1925. Fellow members included Pauline Hopkins and Dorothy West. The Saturday Evening Quill, the group’s annual journal, published the work of African-American women writers and artists, including Florida, Helene Johnson and Lois Mailou Jones.

Florida was also the editor of The Woman’s Era, the country’s first newspaper published by and for African-American women.

Death

Florida died at her daughter Constance‘s home in Toledo, Ohio, on February 25, 1943. She was 82 years old.

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