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| B12:
Ellen and William Craft, home of Harriet and Lewis Hayden 66 Phillips Street  This
station on the Underground Railroad was a destination for many fugitive slaves,
including Ellen Craft (1826-1897) and her husband, William. In 1848 she disguised
herself as her master, bandaged as if ill, and tended to by her husband as if
he were the slave. They escaped from Georgia by taking the train and steamer
to Boston. After two years in Boston where they were active in the anti-slavery
cause, they sailed to England, staying until after the Civil War because the
new Fugitive Slave Law endangered their lives. Harriet Hayden (c.1816-1893)
and her husband, Lewis Hayden, both born slaves, owned this house for more than
40 years. They worked with Underground Railroad "conductor" Harriet Tubman (c.1820-1913),
known as the "Moses of her People," in moving slaves to safe havens. Harriet
Hayden bequeathed a scholarship for "needy and worthy colored students" at Harvard
Medical School.
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B13: Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Florida Ruffin Ridley, and the Women's Era Club 103 Charles Street Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (1842-1924), African American editor and publisher of The Woman's Era, the journal of the New Era Club, lived here for two decades. She founded the club for African American women in 1894. A year later, she organized a national conference to form the National Federation of Afro-American Women to show the existence of a "large and growing class" of cultured African American women. They met at the Charles Street A.M.E. Church (now Meeting House) and merged with the Colored Women's League to form the National Association of Colored Women in 1896. Ruffin served as the first vice president. Although it was accepted by the Massachusetts State Federation of Womens' Clubs, the New Era Club was refused membership in the national federation in 1900 for fear of offending Southern members.
Florida Ruffin Ridley (1861-1943), Ruffin's daughter with her husband, George Ruffin, the first African American judge in the North, became the second African American teacher in the Boston Public Schools. She was active with her mother in the New Era Club as well as in the League for Community Service. She also became a member of several predominantly white clubs, including the Twentieth Century Club and the Women's City Club of Boston (see B1). In addition to her work as a club woman and civil rights activist, Ridley was an essayist and journalist, focusing much of her writing on race relations in New England. In the 1920s, her interest in history led her to found the Society of the Descendents of Early New England Negroes. Through this work, she hoped to connect an understanding of history with contemporary work for social justice. African Americans and whites have always been involved, she wrote, "in the eternal war for justice and liberty which the state has waged." Then, as in her own time, she believed both races deserved an equal place in society.
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