Florida Ruffin Ridley

Florida Ruffin Ridley (born Florida Yates Ruffin; 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.

Early life and education

Florida Yates Ruffin 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 Archibald Ridley, owner of a tailoring business in downtown Boston. The couple moved to Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1896, where they may have been the town's first African-American homeowners. Ridley was one of the founders of the Second Unitarian Church in Brookline.

Activism

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 1893. At the club's first meeting, Ridley announced that the club would be led by black women, but open to women of any race. One club project was to raise funds for a kindergarten for the Georgia Educational League: working in its support, Ridley spent three years in Atlanta, Georgia. The women also created The Woman's Era, a newspaper for distributing club news nationally.

In 1895 they organized a national collaboration that later became the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. Ridley and Ruffin reached out to clubs around the country to organize the First National Conference of the Colored Women of America. Ridley's role in preparation was as the corresponding secretary for the Committee on Arrangements. Ruffin led the conference, with delegates attending from women's clubs across 16 states. During the conference, Ridley served on committees on lynching, the Georgia convict lease system, and Florida school laws.

Ridley had a special interest in black history, and also co-founded the Society for the Collection of Negro Folklore in 1890. This was one of the earliest organizations dedicated to black folklorists.

Ridley was a member of the board of directors for the Robert Gould Shaw Settlement House from 1919 to 1925. In 1929, she was elected to be the Lewis Hayden Memorial Association's secretary. She also collaborated with the Urban League. She also was the first editor of the Social Service News, a journal produced by a collection of Boston social agencies.

In September 2020, the Florida Ruffin Ridley School in Coolidge Corner, Brookline, Massachusetts, formerly known as the Edward Devotion School, was renamed in her honor.