Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (1842-1924), African American editor and publisher of The Woman’s Era, the journal of the Woman’s Era Club, lived here for two decades. In 1894, with her daughter, Florida Ruffin Ridley, she founded the Women’s Era Club for African American women. A year later, she co-organized a national conference which then reorganized itself as the National Federation of Afro-American Women to show the existence of a “large and growing class” of well-educated, activist African American women. They met at the Charles Street A.M.E. Church (now Charles Street 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. In 1900 Ruffin led a protest when the Woman’s Era Club was refused admission at the 1900 General Federation of Women’s Clubs meeting in Milwaukee because its leaders feared offending southern white clubs. Ruffin and her daughter were also active in the League of Women for Community Service. The League, founded in 1918 and now headquartered in Boston’s South End, is an historic Black women’s organization offering a wide variety of social services.
Florida Ruffin Ridley(1861-1943), When Ridley finished her education, she became the second Black woman to teach in Boston. Soon, however, she became a well-known trailblazer for justice. She joined her mother in co-founding the Woman’s Era Club in 1893, ushering in a new era for Black women to meet together and organize against growing racism. The following year, Ridley and her mother co-founded the first national newspaper by and for Black women: The Woman’s Era. It spread important news and helped expand women’s clubs nationally. Building on this work, Ridley, her mother and two others then established the First National Conference of Colored Women in America. By this time, Ridley was also speaking out for women’s suffrage and against lynching and publishing widely read articles. Ridley was also a trailblazer in Black history, fiercely committed to promulgating the history of Black accomplishments, believing it would help undermine racism. She created the Boston Public Library’s first exhibit on Black achievements. She also established the Society of the Descendants of Early New England Negroes. Ridley was many things: a mother, a teacher, a speaker, an organizer, a journalist and a Harlem Renaissance author.
