Dr. Ruth B. Loving

Any body can eat at our table...Anybody

Born in 1914, Ruth Loving witnessed many of the greatest events of the twentieth century. She remembers as a child hearing stories of many relatives and acquaintances who had left their homes in the south in the hopes of finding greater opportunities and more freedom in the north. Her brothers joined the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) during the Great Depression and, she recalls, her parents were pleased with the things that President Roosevelt said in his fireside chats. Ruth was a dedicated home front worker during World War II and the Korean War. In the 1960s she admired Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and met Rosa Parks. A firm believer in the power of community activism, Ruth sums up her life as having "been a part of people and activities." And, as she states, "when I say 'people', even though I'm an African American, I mean people.... I don't look at a color of people,...I was taught that, though." When she was six years old, her mother told Ruth to always remember that "Any body can eat at our table...Anybody."

View a timeline of Dr. Ruth B. Loving's life

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"Double V" oral histories are supported in part by a grant from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.