Where Artistry Meets Activism: An Evening with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, and Angela Davis for An Evening with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee
Student Ambassador Duties
This week my school, along with other Atlanta HBCU's, have begun to organize on our campus promenade. I have been distributing the HistoryMakers' merchandise to these students and have been encouraging the archive's use in their activism and academics.
After having to scrap my previous contest plan, I have gone back to the drawing board and engaged in correspondence with mentor and HistoryMaker Fellow April Lundy to begin the construction of my "Guess Who?: HistoryMakers Edition'' idea instead. I intend to keep contact with the librarians in the meantime, as they may still be able to help with my outreach.
I've also thought about the possibility of advertising in our respective libraries on the whole. I'm not sure if other SBA's have a research center or their own Archival Sections, but I think that perhaps some posters, bookmarks, and official video tutorials on the library websites would help attract traction for the archive.
An Evening with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee
This week’s Student Brand Ambassador assignment included learning about the art and activism of Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. Career performers who got their start in the world renown American Negro Theater Company, the legendary couple sat down with author and activist Angela Davis to discuss their life’s work.
Perhaps one of the most iconic intuitions in the story of Ossie and Ruby is the American Negro Theater. It was there that Ruby and Ossie met for the first time during a production of Jeb (1946). Ruby recounts all the ways that Ossie didn’t make a first impression, saying “I mean I really didn't like him… I used to sit in the theater and we would talk about him. And we would say, ‘Where did he get his clothes?’” Ossie goes on to tell the audience that his peculiar look was all apart of the plan. He says, “I knew what I was doing when I put on them bad clothes. You've got to make the woman feel sorry for you, you know? … I looked so bad that Ruby took me as a life's occupation!” Despite the rocky start, the couple would marry shortly after the production, in 1948.
Ossie and Ruby for Jeb. (1946)
It is also during this time in the American Negro theater that the couple first embarked on their joint journey as activists. The two talked at length about the community fundraising the performers would hold to help keep each other afloat and the many concerns of the largely impoverished artists held. Ruby detailed their collective struggle when she said, “…we came from a time before… the unions were solid… [I] remember all those kinds of people mostly from people's houses where we would be gathered raising funds for one thing or another. And a little earlier in that when we would be helping each--helping somebody pay rent…And you'd see all kinds of people, actors, singers, musicians, come to Harlem . There'd be something at somebody's house most, most every weekend …And that I found so stimulating, not at the time because at the time it seemed just like what you're supposed to do, you know? I--only as I look back on it did I realize how remarkable and how wonderful a time that was.”
However, McCarthyism’s terror on stage and screen would rock the theater world to its core. Numerous actors and artists would be investigated and interrogated by the federal government. Ossie spoke of the intense and unjust times when he said, “We were supposed to be like children, do the plays, go home and forget about it. And those of us who didn't, they put on a list and they came and they subpoenaed us and they made us stand trial and to defend ourselves as if we were traitors, but there was a pattern to what they did.” Furthermore, the couple made it clear that prolific performer, athlete, and activist Paul Robeson became a primary target of the scare. This is exceptionally evident in the eight year long battle to clear Robeson’s right to travel abroad via passport. Ossie recounts exactly how the authorities intended to disrupt Robeson’s activism and divide the joint Civil Rights Movement. “…They succeeded in separating Paul, in a sense, from the mainline struggle. Not because Paul was not involved in the mainline struggle, but …getting him his passport became a movement of its own.” He continues, “Well, that split him and his group off from the middle-class black members of the NAACP who … thought we could work with the [U.S.] Congress and with the President to get the anti-lynching law passed.”
Paul Robeson’s invalid passport
However this would not be the last time that the couple would witness a fracture in community activism. As Ruby and Ossie gained recognition as performers and activists, they soon became the go to hosts of any racial-political events. Of their typical duties, Ossie says, “Pass out the leaflets, raise the funds, make the speech, do the MC [master of ceremonies]--all of those various things. And to this--and we still do it.” This reputation would hold up in to the Civil rights Movement of the 1960’s, where Dee and Davis would become involved in the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
On the seemingly opposing views of the two black icons, Dee and Davis noted their understanding of each philosophy. “…We could understand historically where Dr. King might be coming from as he preached integration and his middle-class background, his Southern background. And we could also understand Malcolm. From the Black Nationalist's perspective, and where he came from, speaking eloquently to the streets of the North. But we understood that those--that they both were part of the same struggle...” The couple, along with Juanita and Ruby Poitier attempted to throw a lunch so the two leaders could talk through their differences but X’s murder in Febuary of 1965 ruined that chance. “But it was a part of what we were trying to do to pull them together,” Dee recounts, "because it was the struggle that was important, it was the fact that they related to our needs that was important, not what surface differences that they might've had. We felt that way about it.”
Dr. King and Malcolm X share a laugh shortly before his assassination in February of 1965
This empathetic and comprehensive understanding of the varied experiences of Black Americans would carry them through as torch carriers through the 1970’s . During this time, the two would become heavily involved in the campaign for Angela Davis’ fight for freedom. Their love for Angela and her cause is clear when Davis says “…You were to us one of the causes that we held dear. Ruby and I have children and we consider, particularly the young people involved in the struggle, that we have an obligation to them. And when you came along it was a natural step for us to take to say, "Well, if you're going to come and get that Davis, you may as well line up the rest of us—!”
Ad for the arrest of Angela Davis
This passion for the liberation of black youth followed the couple to their last days. They engaged in countless foundations and causes to support the global black community. However, it is never with the intention to be memorialized or deified. In a later interview with the History Maker’s, Ossie Davis says, “This is wisdom, you know. We have--we've dedicated too much time and energy to things that are ego-driven, and that would be nice if history were gonna stop, but it ain't. All of our technological brilliances will one day be looked upon--and our artistic brilliances will one day be looked upon by our children, who will smile at our lack of sophistication and keep on going. I'm willing to be swept up in the current of existence. It's treated me well. I've loved it, and it certainly has loved me…”
If you would like to see the clips mentioned in this article, along with others chronicling the lives of Dee and Davis, you can find them here in this specially curated MyClips Playlist!
