Remembering Ruby Dee, Celebrating the American Negro Theatre

Our former pre-professional, Farrah Lopez, pays tribute to American Negro Theatre alum Ruby Dee as we celebrate its 75th anniversary. 

The inimitable Ruby Dee, a Grammy and Emmy winner as well as an Academy Award nominee (American Gangster), began her acting career right here at the American Negro Theatre. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in Harlem, New York, Dee joined the theater as an apprentice in 1941, working with the illustrious Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and Hilda Simms while still a student at Hunter College.

Enamored by the theater but without a black screen idol to look up to, Dee set out to break barriers and soon landed on Broadway in 1943 alongside Canada Lee in Harry Rigsby and Dorothy Heyward’s South Pacific.  While she continued to blaze her own trail in Hollywood and beyond, becoming an icon when she starred in the film adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun in 1961, it is her work as an activist that still resonates today. In addition to emceeing the March on Washington in 1963, Dee became a passionate civil rights figure with husband and fellow American Negro Theatre actor, Ossie Davis. 

Though Ohio was her first home, Dee’s powerful connection with Harlem and the American Negro Theatre would remain with her until her passing on June 11, 2014. The actress described Harlem as an integral part of her identity in an NPR interview: “I don’t know who I would be if I weren’t this child from Harlem, this woman from Harlem. It’s in me so deep.” 

Learn more about our new exhibition, The 75th Anniversary of the American Negro Theatre.