DEE, Ruby

(b. 27 October 1924 in Cleveland, Ohio), actress, writer, and social activist who was the first African-American woman to play major parts in theater and film during the 1960s and to receive critical acclaim for her performances and praise for her support of the civil rights movement in the United States.

Dee was born Ruby Ann Wallace, the third of four children of Marshall Edward, a railroad porter and waiter, and Emma Benson, a schoolteacher. The family relocated to Harlem in New York City, while Dee was an infant. Even though Dee grew up in the ghetto, her mother determined that she would study literature and music rather than watch movies and listen to the radio. The family read poetry by Longfellow, Wordsworth, and the African-American poetPaul Laurence Dunbar to one another. Dee's mother restricted her neighborhood interactions but allowed her to watch from a safe distance; thus she lived a somewhat sheltered existence. Dee eventually submitted her poetry to the New York Amsterdam News, a weekly newspaper catering to an African-American audience. Some of Dee's poems were published in the News and she later contributed to columns for the publication.

Dee enrolled at Hunter College to study Spanish and French, graduating in 1945 with a B.A. At the same time, from 1941 to 1944, she was an apprentice with the American Negro Theatre (ANT) and appeared in a variety of productions. During her tenure with ANT, Wallace adopted the stage name of "Ruby Dee." Her Broadway debut in December 1943 was as a native girl in South Pacific. Three years later she appeared in Robert Ardrey's Jeb, a drama about the troubles of a returning African-American war hero. The play starred Ossie Davis, whom she married two years later on 9 December 1948. They have three children. In 1944 and again in 1947, Dee starred in an adaptation of Anna Lucasta, first at ANT and then on Broadway, which drew attention to her acting abilities. Dee appeared in her first film, Love in Syncopation, in 1946. Between roles, she used her fluent French and Spanish to work as a translator for an import business. She continued to garner wide acclaim with lead film appearances with Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), Sidney Poitier in No Way Out (1950), and again with Poitier in Edge of the City (1957).

The 1950s were characterized by the specters of McCarthyism and red-baiting, as well as stereotypical imagery of African Americans. Dee received a role in The World of Sholem Aleichem (1953) through friends she made while protesting the treatment of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. She campaigned for the return of Paul Robeson's passport, which had been confiscated due to his unpopular political beliefs. Despite the prevailing political climate, Dee managed to avoid damaging her career through hard work, determination, and a refusal to be boxed in as "the Negro June Allyson."

The 1960s were colored by the rise of social activism, protest against racial inequality, and the Vietnam War. In the 1950s, theater and film roles overwhelmingly portrayed African Americans as "mammie, jezebel, coon, and rascal" stereotypes. The 1960s saw the emergence of three-dimensional roles that humanized the black experience to reflect a heightened consciousness. Dee entered the 1960s with her strong portrayal of Ruth Younger in A Raisin in the Sun (1959), the prize-winning play by Lorraine Hansberry that depicted the struggles of a working-class family. Sidney Poitier costarred with Dee in the movie version two years later. Dee also appeared in Purlie Victorious (1961), a play by Ossie Davis that satirized southern black-white relationships, and later, the movie version, Gone Are the Days (1963). In 1965 Dee became the first African-American woman to appear in major roles at the American Shakespeare Festival at Stratford, Connecticut, playing Kate in The Taming of the Shrew and Cordelia in King Lear. Her work earned her an appearance on the cover of Jet magazine and continued acclaim and recognition. However, the persistent scarcity of challenging roles led Dee to join forces with other African-American performers to form the Coordinating Council for Negro Performers, which lobbied the entertainment industry for greater participation. This work led Dee to the front ranks of the civil rights movement.

Dee served on national committees and performed in benefit shows to raise money for the legal defense of civil rights workers arrested in demonstrations. She affiliated with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). She also gave benefits for the Black Panthers, a youth organization formed to protect the African-American community against police brutality, and the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican youth organization patterned on the Black Panthers for similar concerns of protecting their community. The murder of four girls at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy the same year horrified an entire nation and prompted Dee to join with other prominent black writers, artists, and actors to form the Association of Artists for Freedom. This group organized a nationwide boycott of spending for Christmas in view of the atrocity in Birmingham. Many supporters of this effort instead used their Christmas money to support various civil rights groups.

Dee was friendly with prominent civil rights activists Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. Although the two men held vastly different philosophies for achieving the goals of racial and economic equality, she had respect for both their public and private personas. She participated in the March on Washington with King. Malcolm X came to see Purlie Victorious and spent time in her home. Dee arranged meetings between Malcolm X and Paul Robeson as well as with members of King's civil rights organization. News of Malcolm X's death in 1965 caused her feelings of nausea, pain, and rage. The death of King in 1968 was completely "unutterable." She also spoke out against U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.

Against this backdrop of political and social turmoil, Dee continued to work steadily in theater, film, and television, making guest appearances on The Fugitive (ABC), The Defenders (CBS), and The Nurses (CBS). She toured with Ossie Davis to give recitals of dramatic scenes, poems, and stories. In 1964 Dee and Davis presented poetry readings against a jazz background at the Village Vanguard in New York and recorded The Poetry of Langston Hughes for Caedmon Records. Dee continued to break through racial barriers, winning roles as Julia Augustine in The Wedding Band (1966), Laurie in Uptight (1965), Joan Robinson in The Incident (1968), and Alma Miles, a surgeon's wife in ABC television's Peyton Place (1968 and 1969).

Dee received the Frederick Douglass Award from the New York Urban League in 1970. She starred in Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing (1989) and received numerous Emmy Award nominations for her television appearances, winning for outstanding supporting actress in a miniseries or special in 1991 for Decoration Day (NBC). The Ruby Dee Scholarship in Dramatic Art, which Dee endowed, helps young black women become established in acting, the profession Dee herself has used as a springboard for a lifetime of social activism.

An autobiography written by Dee with Ossie Davis is With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together (1998). Biographical accounts include Elton C. Fax, Contemporary Black Leaders (1970); Loften Mitchell, Voices of the Black Theater (1975); and Brian Lanker, I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America (1989). Articles about Dee include Alan Ebert, "The Woman Ruby Dee," Essence Magazine (June 1976).

Lee McQueen