Ruth Simmons is an exceptional figure, not only because of the many “firsts” she has achieved, but because she overcame various disadvantages from her youth. As the first Black President of an Ivy League school, the first Black woman to lead any major university in the United States, the first Black President at Smith College, and the first female President at Brown University, Ruth Simmons personifies the power of possibility and perseverance.
Born in 1945, Ruth Simmons was raised within a family struggling to overcome poverty. The youngest of 12 children, she grew up on an East Texas farm raised by her father, a sharecropper, and her mother, a domestic worker who tragically passed away just before Ruth turned 16. Despite the many obstacles she faced from an early age, Ruth was determined to rise above her family’s circumstances to achieve greatness. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Dillard University and her master’s and doctorate degrees from Harvard University, before holding various leadership positions in higher education. Her extraordinary rise from the constraints of a childhood in the segregated South to her various leadership roles – including her current position on President Biden’s White House HBCU Advisory Board – is now outlined in her debut memoir, Up Home: One Girl’s Journey.
Watch the replay above featuring the remarkable Ruth Simmons. She will share her journey from poverty to the pinnacle of higher education, including the most important lessons she has learned about perseverance. Ruth shares a story that offers hope and possibility for all of us. As she says, and has proven by her life’s example, “Every day we shape who we are and the future by virtue of our own actions.”
Order a complimentary copy of Ruth Simmon’s book Up Home: One Girls’s Journey here.
