PEP, March 2007: Ruby Dee on stage at DC 37

By Jane LaTour

Ruby Dee came to DC 37 Jan. 29 and within moments, she held the huge gathering in the palm of her hand. Her magnetic presence, her warmth, her talent and the depth of her character animated the auditorium for the next hour.

When she spoke about her life with Ossie Davis, her equally talented husband, it was as if he were in the next room, rather than amongst the departed. His presence was very much front and center as the actress with the trained, velvety voice read from the book of his writings that she edited (see below).

The material she gathered was the product of a collaborative marriage and years spent together engaged in the struggles of their time. “I went from knit-purl and argyle socks to collecting his poems and speeches to let him know how much I appreciated him,” she recalled.

Master storytellers
Before each selection she read, Dee offered a little story that offered insight into its origin. “He treated words as if they tasted good,” said Dee, who shares that talent for savoring language.

She quoted from the W.E.B. Du Bois speech that was the source of the book title: “Ibelieve in the training of children, black even as white; the leading out of little souls into the green pastures and beside the still waters, not for pelf or peace, but for life lit by some large vision of beauty and goodness and truth.” She told of, “The English language is my enemy,” the essay where Davis showed that English synonyms for white are mainly positive while synonyms for black are negative.

The evening, sponsored by the DC 37Education Fund Authors Talk Committee,began with an introduction by committee member Ken Nash. “Your presence here tonight confirms your passion for these long distance runners bringing the message of peace and justice for all,” he said. DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts welcomed Dee as “part of the DC 37 family” and spoke of her ability to “inspire and enlighten.”

Long after the event concluded, Dee stayed and signed every book that members purchased with a warm message. As she has done many times before at DC 37, Ruby Dee came, she saw, and she conquered.

Book Review

“Life Lit By Some Large Vision” is a landmark collection of selected speeches, essays, and other writings by Ossie Davis (1917-2005), the actor, writer and tireless fighter for civil rights and economic justice.

Actress Ruby Dee, Davis’s wife of 56 years, introduces each selection with personal comments and reminiscences, and his clear accessible language helps readers understand his opinions, memories, struggles and hopes.

The inspiring collection is steeped in America’s history and Davis’s deep commitment to the movement for social change — through the labor ferment of the 1940s, the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s, the civil rights revolution of the 1960s and the campaigns to end the wars in Vietnam and Iraq.

The couple counted among their friends baseball great Jackie Robinson, union leader A. Philip Randolph, Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. He delivered stirring eulogies for Malcolm and King.

Davis’s lifelong battle for racial justice and human dignity began on Broadway after he returned from service in World War II. “There was a strong feeling that racism had to be attacked,” he said. “And in my mind that passion was expressed most vividly in the theater.”

Ossie Davis the actor and writer (“Raisin in the Sun,” “Purlie Victorious”) is Ossie Davis the activist, intensely committed to the idea that art and politics are inseparable. Whether he comments on black playwright Lorraine Hansberry or on economic theories, his fundamental themes are freedom, equality and social justice — themes Davis gave voice to in the drama of the social and political protests he joined and led.

Davis challenges us to decide the issues that will define us. His speech, “World Hunger and Me,” (2002) makes us wonder how U.S. history would have been changed if Harriet Tubman, after stealing her freedom, had not risked all by returning South to help free other slaves. Or if John Brown had just farmed his New England land instead of leading a brigade to Harpers Ferry to try and free slaves? Who would have taken up the challenges of fighting for civil rights and voting rights if W.E.B. DuBois had accepted a comfortable professorship at Atlanta University, if there was never a Frederick Douglass, A. Philip Randolph or Martin Luther King?

The lives of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee together were lit by a “large vision of truth and goodness and beauty.” In this posthumous collection, Davis warns us that the possibility of a better world depends on our own vision and what we do about it.

“Life Lit By Some Large Vision” is $23.95 in paperback. Copies — as well as CDs of speeches and performances by Davis and Dee — are in the Education Fund library, Room 211 at DC 37.

— Susan Bailey, DC 37 Education Fund