Heslip-Ruffin Family
Biographical Statement
The Heslip and Ruffin families were active as African American leaders since the time of Nancy and George W. Ruffin, antebellum free Blacks from Virginia. Members of the families were active in the areas of politics, publishing and editing, and law.
Nancy Ruffin (1816-1874) and George W. Ruffin (1800-1863) were free Blacks during the antebellum era residing in Richmond, Virginia. George W. worked as a barber, and both he and Nancy valued education and hired a tutor to teach their children English literature, Latin and the classics. Following the prohibition by the Virginia legislature against African Americans learning to read, Nancy moved to Boston in 1853 along with their eight children, while George W remained in Virginia and sent funds for the family's support. Following the move to Boston, Nancy sold fish and fruit sent by family in the South.
George L. Ruffin (1834-1886) was the oldest son of George W. and Nancy. He, as with his siblings, attended Boston public schools; George later attended Chapman Hall. In 1858, he married Josephine St. Pierre (1842-1924), the daughter of a prominent African American family in Boston. The couple had five children. George L and Josephine moved to England that same year due to disillusionment over slavery in the United States. They stayed only six months before returning to the U.S.
George L. and Josephine were active in military recruitment during the Civil War. Their work in community service earned them the reputation of reformers and activists. Following their return from England, George L. became a barber, but later began studying law. He entered Harvard Law School, and became the first African American to graduate from Harvard University in 1869, and is believed to be the first African American to graduate from any American law school. He was admitted to the bar in September that same year.
The Ruffins became active in elite African American social circles and befriended abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. George L. also wrote the introduction to the 1881 edition of Douglass' "Life and Times of Frederick Douglass". George L. served on the Boston Common Council, and in 1883, he was appointed Massachusetts's first African American judge by Governor Benjamin Butler.
George L. died in 1886 from Bright's disease. Following his death, Josephine continued to be active in social causes. She founded the Woman's Era, a monthly magazine devoted to African American women's issues. She also served as editor in chief of the African American weekly newspaper The Boston Courant, and was active in the New England Women's Press Association.
Josephine, along with her daughter Florida and others, founded The Women's Era Club, which was the precursor to the National Association of Colored Women. She was also a founding member of the Boston chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She died of nephritis at age eight-two.
Florida Ruffin Ridley (1861-1943) was one of five children born to George L. and Josephine Ruffin. Her career and interest in social activism was strongly influenced by her parents. She attended Boston Teachers College and Boston University before teaching in the Boston public school system. She married folklorist and tailor Ulysses A. Ridley of Boston; the couple had two children, Ulysses Jr. and Constance.
Florida worked closely with her mother in the Black woman's club movement as indicated above. In 1895, she helped organize the first national conference of Black women in Boston. An outgrowth of this conference was the formation of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, which later merged with the Colored Women's League to form the National Association of Colored Women.
Florida's activism also saw outlet in her writing and editing. She served as editor of the Woman's Era and had her creative writing published in various magazines. She continued her efforts with various reform organizations in the Boston area that focused on issues of importance to African Americans, the urban poor, and migrants, including the Urban League, the Harriet Tubman House, the YWCA, and others. She eventually moved to Toledo, Ohio, to live with her daughter, Constance Heslip, where she died in 1943.
Constance Ridley (d. 1973), daughter of Florida R. and Ulysses A. Ridley, graduated from Simmons College in Boston. She married attorney Jesse S. Heslip, a prominent lawyer in Toledo, Ohio, in 1927. Constance was one of seven women who founded the Toledo chapter of Delta Sigma Theta in 1937. She served on the National Board of the YWCA and taught a class on race relations in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toledo.
Jesse A. Heslip (1890?-1971) was a native of Ellisville, Missouri. He graduated from Howard University in 1917, and afterward served as chairman of a committee that petitioned Congress to establish an officer training camp for African American college students during World War I. After its establishment, Heslip attended the camp before serving in the U.S. Army overseas. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1922 and began a law practice in Toledo, Ohio. He was a friend of NAACP executive secretary Walter White and served on the national legal committee of the NAACP. White and Heslip worked together to file a civil rights lawsuit against Hotel New Yorker in New York during the late 1920s and early 1930s after the hotel refused to allow Heslip to stay there. Heslip served as president of the National Bar Association from 1931-1933. He died of cancer in 1971 at the age of 80.