Self-definition and Safe Space

Growing up, Ruby Dee was able to self-define and construct a safe space for herself at a young age. In the evenings, Dee and her siblings would read aloud to each other poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Wordsworth, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. When she was a teenager, Dee submitted poetry to the New York Amsterdam News, a Black weekly newspaper; in Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins makes mention of the fact that “African-American women have traditionally used family networks and Black community institutions as sites for countering [controlling] images” (page 101).

In her later years, “Dee admitted that during those years she was a shy girl but that she always felt a burning desire to express herself” (NotableBiographies). In fact, her love of English and poetry motivated her to study the arts, and she decided to pursue acting. Her further inclusion in the arts was very important because “by advancing Black women’s empowerment through self-definition, these safe spaces help Black women resist the dominant ideology promulgated not only outside Black civil society but within African-American institutions” (page 101).

As a result of constructing a safe space for her self-definition, Dee “was talented enough and lucky enough to garner some of the best roles for black women in the 1950s and 1960s” (The History Makers). She was able to use her voice in the arts to share the stories of Black women in America, and the struggles of being a woman as a whole. Ruby became the first African-American actress to appear in major roles at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut in 1965; in 1968, she became the first African American actress to be featured on Peyton Place.

Ruby Dee: A Black Feminist

I believe that Ruby Dee is a Black feminist from analyzing her community activism, and pursuit to always remain working, which she found to be her place for self-definition. In her later years, Dee established the Ruby Dee Scholarship in Dramatic Art, this scholarship is awarded to talented, young, Black women who want to become established in the acting profession.

In Essence's interview with Dee, she strongly stated that we women have a great function to perform. The world needs us. Female sensibilities are not being acknowledged, and we've allowed the antipeople to steal the children and are tolerating far too much: the assault on ourselves, the families of the world, permitting war and rape. More women are becoming enraged about these things and I think we're on the verge of doing something about them. Dee boldy promotes community activism, and the importance for women to use their voices with movements for justice in society.

Ruby B. Johnson
Creator of Ruby Is Her Name


Sources:
Essence
Notable Biographies

Importance of reading and writing

In her words:

The storytelling is what intrigues me about a book, and I think that I like us to know our authors as well as we know our sports figures, rap stars, musicians, and politicians. So I'm feeling, why don't we know our authors that well? In these days when so much detracts from the written word about we people who are in the word business say 'Hey, let's look at words!' We're looking at music, we're looking at science, we're looking at television, but what about those things that emulate from the human spirit and express so beautiful? These authors I think define us, tell us who we are. They put us in context as human beings, the species. I'd like to be remembered for inspiring young communicators to dare to be differenct, to have courage for their convictions and to move forward. 

SOURCE:

Video

The Somebodiness of Me

We need to spend our time helping to make it easier for the people who are on the frontlines of change in our country and this world. I say I am somebody, because you make me somebody. Somebody because you are part of the shared somebodiness of me.

Here's an excerpt from The Sundance Channel's Iconoclast episode featuring Ruby Dee and Alicia Keys. Ruby shares a poem while speaking to some youth at a New York school.

Ruby, when she worked at the Western Electric Company's Kearny Works during World War II, soldiering wires on an assembly line.

Interest in Acting

I was interested in acting for a very long time. We would always recite poems if company came to the house, we always had to do something. I remember being very small reciting a poem because your mother's friends had to seat there and listen to all the children play the violin, that's what happened, that's what you did. My mother I think inspired me to become an actress. You know when a tree seems to be going a certain way, the atmosphere or the family , the spiritual environment at home, oh yes he's gonna be an architect. If that child is gifted in some way, he might really be an architect. The spiritual will of the family and then I think the elements conspire to move you to those directions is said you will go.

Performing a poem, "Daughter," while Odetta plays "When I Was A Young Girl" on With Ossie and Ruby. Clip originally aired in 1981.

My mother was a teacher, disciplinarian, she was always talking about education and we had to get good grades, she helped us with the work. She was really one-track when it came to education but she did want me to have a career in acting. It was she that I heard arguing with my father one night.

SOURCE:

Video

Harlem during The Great Depression

Mostly I remember the people being put out in the streets, those who couldn't cope, and I remember passing by and looking at belongings on the streets. I was just standing there and having this thing sink into me that people were in the streets because they couldn't pay the rent and wondering will that ever happen to us.

I remember once a man came by he was talking to himself, he's looking at all these things in the streets, and then he went up a few blocks and he shot himself. I remember seeing two people take something like an oil cloth and cover up the people's bed and things that were in the streets, I don't know why that happened but the sheriffs could put you in the streets, so that the things wouldn't get wet in the rain. 

I remember my mother helping a neighbor, lending them food, baking stuff and taking next door to somebody. Those were the times that there was no television, we didn't have a radio, people came to your house, the children entertained.

SOURCE:

Video

Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis Tribute

"The couple, who in addition to being married, have always seemed fused in mind and spirit as professionals. Indeed Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee have been fighting and winning the artistic struggle all their lives."

"The graceful and elegant Ruby Dee, a celebrated actress of over 100 films is also a published novelist, poet, and columnist for the Amsterdam News"

"Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis are a love story for the ages. Their partnership reflects a commitment to excellence and to progress, and to always speaking truth to power. Most of all though, their relationship symbolizes a commitment to a love of themselves, of each other, and of course a love for the possibility of what this country and what this world can be!"

Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis tribute at the One Hundred Black Men, Inc. in New York banquet in 2005. Directed and edited by Scott Marshall, and executively produced by Ana Carril-Grumberg.