Ruby Dee

Ruby Dee was an actress, poet, playwright, and civil rights activist whose career spanned eight decades and whose talent was matched only by her courage. She appeared in the original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun, the landmark film adaptation alongside Sidney Poitier, and continued working until she was 91, earning an Academy Award nomination for American Gangster in 2007 at the age of 83.

Born Ruby Ann Wallace in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1922, and raised in Harlem, Dee graduated from Hunter College and joined the American Negro Theatre, where she met her future husband Ossie Davis. Together, they became the most influential couple in Black American theater and political activism. They served as master and mistress of ceremonies at the 1963 March on Washington and were close friends and supporters of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

Dee's activism was as important as her art. She and Davis were members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), participated in the civil rights movement at great personal risk, and used their celebrity to advance the cause of justice. She received the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honor, and a Grammy Award for her spoken word album. After Davis's death in 2005, she continued working and speaking out until her own passing in 2014 at 91.