What I Learned from “An Evening With Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee”
Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee in 2009. (Wikimedia Commons)
For this week, my assignment was to watch this YouTube video in which actor Ossie Davis (1917-2005) and actress Ruby Dee (1922-2014) are interviewed by renowned activist and academic Angela Davis. The duo, who were married in 1948, spoke about their lives and work. It was an entertaining and insightful interview. So, let’s get right into some of what I learned from it.
What did you learn?
1. That Davis and Dee were activists in their own right
I already knew that Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis were actors. I’ve seen Ruby in Roots: The Next Generations and Ossie in Proud. And, of course, I’d seen them star opposite each other in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing as Da Mayor and Mother Sister. However, I knew absolutely nothing about what they have done outside of their acting careers—their humanitarian and activist work. For instance, I had no idea that they were on familiar terms with Malcolm X or that they raised money for the campaigns of their interviewer Angela Davis as well as other political prisoners like Mumia Abu-Jamal. (More on him later.)
In the course of my research, I also took the time to view this video, titled “African American Legends: Legendary Actors: Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.” As Roscoe C. Brown says in this video, “[Ossie and Ruby] are both known as much as civil rights leaders and opinion [makers] as you are outstanding actors and actresses.” That, I think, is a quote that really exemplifies who they were.
2. Angela Davis’s early life
Of course, I thought it would be prudent to spend some time researching the person who conducted the interview in the “An Evening With Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee” video: Angela Davis. In contrast to what I knew about Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, I was already quite familiar with much of Angela Davis’s work—her contribution to the American left is well-documented and acknowledged. The first place I looked was the HistoryMakers Digital Archive, since I knew already that there was an interview for with her published there. It turns out that Davis’s interview is actually one of the longer ones in the collection, and encompasses a whopping 13 tapes and has clips filmed from 2003 to 2015.
For now, I only had time to watch the first four tapes of the interview, which cover Davis’s early life until she went to college. It was fascinating to learn about the education of such an eminent figure. I had no idea, for example, that Davis had gone to high school not in her native state (Alabama), but rather in New York City, where she stayed with a white family who had a profound influence on her politics. It was at this high school that she read Marx and began to be involved in “red” student groups, and also when she read French philosophers like Sartre (her favorite).
It makes me wonder—and Davis talks about this herself—what would have happened if she had had to stay in her Alabama hometown for her education? Certainly, we have a number of radicals who got their education in that state, but would Davis have been one of them if she had stayed? What experiences would she have missed if she didn’t go to New York? To this day, Alabama ranks low out of all the states of the Union in terms of quality of public education. Although things have certainly improved since Davis’s childhood, it’s still a problem. It just makes me wonder how many other Black kids like Davis might have been unable to receive a quality education in their home states thanks to inadequate funding for predominantly Black communities and other systemic issues.
A screenshot from Angela Davis’s interview in the HistoryMakers Digital Archive.
What surprised you?
1. Ossie Davis was part of a 1976 album from Muhammad Ali that was made to raise awareness about tooth decay.
So, apparently, back in the 70s it was normal to record albums that tell stories. Makes sense, I guess. In 1976, eminent boxer Muhammad Ali released an album that tried to teach children about the dangers of letting your teeth rot. Ali apparently boxes a fellow named Mr. Tooth Decay. According to its Wikipedia article, at some point in the story Ali heads to a farm with a group of children, “where they learn the importance of drinking milk and eating fruit and vegetables from farmer Brother St. John (played by Ossie Davis).” Frank Sinatra was also in the cast. I don’t know what to do with this information, but it is a good little bit of weird trivia.
Cover for the album, “Ali and His Gang Vs. Mr. Tooth Decay.” (Wikipedia)
What research rabbit-holes did you go down in the database?
1. Mumia Abu-Jamal
The “rabbit-hole” I undoubtedly spent the most amount of time in was that concerning the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Philadelphia journalist who was accused of killing a police officer in 1981. Abu-Jamal was initially sentenced to death, but thanks to a campaign that was supported Ossie and Ruby, he got off death row. (They mention this in an offhand comment at some point in the “ An Evening With” video.) But he still remains in prison. It’s a really fascinating case—one that I’m really not qualified to try to summarize here. If you have time, I highly recommend the short documentary below, which lays out the facts of the case very nicely. Abu-Jamal has become a global symbol of the injustice and corruption of the criminal justice system.
2. Birmingham’s “Dynamite Hill” Neighborhood
In her interview in the Digital Archive, Angela Davis that the neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama, that she grew up in was nicknamed “Dynamite Hill” on account of all the Ku Klux Klan bombings that happened there. I was initially interested in this because I’m aware that my mom’s childhood home in Galax, Virginia, was known as “N***er Hill” for quite awhile. But anyway. I looked up “Dynamite Hill,” and sure enough, there was an excellent NPR piece that discusses the nickname and the reason that this particular neighborhood of “Bombingham” earned the moniker.
A poster advocating for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal in Berlin, Germany, 2009. (Wikimedia Commons)
In other news, my outreach work is still ongoing. Shooting around a lot of emails, some of which get responses, some of which don’t. This past week I had a very worthwhile meeting with Jack Ferrari, who heads (at least) two undergrad history clubs. I’m presenting my HistoryMakers slideshow for them on Tuesday, November 2, so that’s something to look forward to.
I’ve also created a Twitter account for the express purpose of expanding my HistoryMakers outreach—but you can’t see it yet because, um, I haven’t done anything with it yet and that’d be embarrassing. But, please, have patience. All in due time.
On that note, thanks for reading and you’ll hear more from me next week!