Ruth DeMond Brooks
Ruth DeMond Brooks | |
|---|---|
 Ruth DeMond, from a 1924 publication. | |
| Born | Ruth Watkins DeMond January 29, 1902 New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Died | May 15, 1987 Wheaton, Maryland, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Syracuse University University of Chicago |
| Occupation | Teacher |
| Years active | 1920s-1950s |
| Parent | Abraham Lincoln DeMond |
Ruth Watkins DeMond Brooks (January 29, 1902 – May 15, 1987) was an American educator. She taught history at Cardozo High School in Washington, D.C. for 28 years. Her father and husband were prominent ministers.
Early life
[edit]Ruth Watkins DeMond was born in New Orleans, the eldest of five children born to Abraham Lincoln DeMond and Lula Irene Watkins Patterson DeMond. Her father was an Episcopalian minister, born and educated in New York, and at Howard University.[1][2] Her mother, from Alabama, studied music in Boston and taught at several black colleges; she was also active in temperance work.[3]
Ruth DeMond earned a bachelor's degree from Syracuse University in 1924,[4] and earned a master's degree in history at the University of Chicago.[5][6]
Career
[edit]Brooks taught at Douglass High School in Baltimore for five years as a young woman,[7][8] and taught history at Cardozo High School in Washington, D.C.[5] for 28 years, with a permanent appointment granted in 1932.[9] She was teaching at the school when it integrated in 1954.[10][11] She retired from teaching in 1957.[6]
Personal life
[edit]In 1928, Ruth DeMond was a bridesmaid at the wedding of her friend and school colleague Yolande Du Bois (daughter of W. E. B. Du Bois) to poet Countee Cullen, in New York.[12][13] In December 1931,[7] at her father's church in Nashville, she married Robert William Brooks, pastor of Lincoln Temple Congregational Church in Washington, D.C.[14] She was widowed when Rev. Brooks died in 1952,[5] and she died in 1987, aged 85, at a nursing home in Wheaton, Maryland.[6]
Brooks' sister Marguerite DeMond married Harlem Renaissance journalist John P. Davis. In 1989, a library book borrowed by Ruth DeMond in 1926 was returned to the Nashville Public Library system by Brooks' nephew, journalist Michael DeMond Davis.[15]
References
[edit]- ^ "Hold Funeral Services for Rev. DeMond in D.C." The New York Age. February 8, 1936. p. 3. Retrieved September 2, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Abraham Lincoln DeMond: SUNY Cortland remembers first black alum". Cortland Voice. March 18, 2019. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
- ^ "Hold Funeral for Widow of Rev. DeMond". The Chicago Defender. February 24, 1945. p. 15 – via ProQuest.
- ^ "And Still More Graduates". The Crisis. 28: 179. August 1924 – via HathiTrust.
- ^ a b c Brewer, William M. (1953). "Robert William Brooks". Negro History Bulletin. 16 (9): 194–215. ISSN 0028-2529. JSTOR 44212712.
- ^ a b c "Ruth DeMond Brooks (obituary)". Washington Post. May 19, 1987. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved September 2, 2020.
- ^ a b "Miss Ruth DeMond Wed to Lincoln Temple Pastor". Baltimore Afro American. January 2, 1932. p. 1. Retrieved September 2, 2020 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
- ^ "Helped with Play". Baltimore Afro American: 8. May 28, 1927 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
- ^ "69 Are Appointed District Teachers". Evening Star. September 15, 1932. p. 17. Retrieved September 2, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Tepper, Rachel (November 15, 2011). "Historic Cardozo High School: Then And Now (PHOTOS)". HuffPost. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
- ^ School, Cardozo High (1954). ""Purple Wave" 1954 Cardozo High School Yearbook". Your DC Digital Museum, Washington, DC, Capitol Hill; December 12, 2015. Patricia Ford Neal. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
- ^ "More DuBois Wedding". Baltimore Afro American. April 14, 1928. p. 4. Retrieved September 2, 2020 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
- ^ "Yolande Du Bois with bridesmaids on her wedding day, 1928". W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, Credo at UMass Amherst. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
- ^ Who's who in Colored America. Who's Who in Colored America Corporation. 1942. p. 76.
- ^ Davis, Louise (August 16, 1989). "Red-Letter Events Hide in the Pages of Library Books". The Tennessean. p. 47. Retrieved September 2, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
