“Live Life Faithful to Who You Think You Are:” Ruth J. Simmons on Becoming Someone She Wasn’t Supposed to Be https://ift.tt/TZpowW5
Up Home: One Girl’s Journey is a memoir that takes us through Ruth J. Simmons’ early life, including childhood poverty, racial segregation and the loss of her mother – all on the way to becoming the first Black president of an Ivy League school.
With the help of beloved family members and teachers who became like family, Simmons built a distinguished life she says she wasn’t born to have.
She is the former president of Smith College, Brown University and Prairie View A&M University, and the former vice provost of Princeton. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Dillard University and her master’s and doctorate from Harvard in Romance languages and literatures. The president of France named her chevalier of the French Legion of Honor and President Biden named her to the White House HBCU Advisory Board.
Simmons, who lives in Texas, answered my questions via email.
In your book, you mention that you associate “up home” with a return to one’s roots, and I imagine these words hold a lot of emotion for you. Was there a moment when you realized you wanted to write about your early life for publication? Was there a specific time period or event that you were looking forward to sharing – or one you thought needed to be shared – with readers?
Until I became a college president, I had not imagined that the early circumstances of my life might be important to share with others. Indeed, none of my professional colleagues was aware of those circumstances. As I began to be asked about my early life and press accounts highlighted details of my origins, students began to seek my guidance on how they might move beyond their own challenges and find success in a professional pursuit. The more I found myself having to explain how I overcame life in a small town in East Texas during the segregated era of the country, the more I realized that I could avoid having to repeat the story by writing about it. So, I started the book during my Brown presidency but set it aside for a number of years only to take it up again during the COVID pandemic.
Were there also parts of your life that were difficult to write about, or maybe even stories that were left out for that reason?
I’ve always had difficulty dealing with my mother’s death so those sections of the book, even now, sadden me greatly. But, having recognized that I am the person I am today chiefly because of her, I could not avoid trying to communicate why she was so central to my achievements. Although she was uneducated and unpretentious in every way, she shaped my self-identity, my drive to self-improvement and, ultimately, the values that motivate me to do my work as an educator.
My dad, like you, grew up with 11 brothers and sisters, and I know that siblings don’t always recall childhood experiences alike. Did your family have the opportunity to review the book and, if so, were there any things they remembered differently and/or preferred you left out?
Leery of what I presumed would be their impulse to limit what I might reveal, I consulted them about details of our early life before writing and, subsequently, did not share drafts with them. They surely would have recalled things differently as their perspectives generally differ substantially from my own. The older cohort of the twelve children had a very different life and outlook because of the age differences among us. Today, they regard my views and approaches to matters as somewhat aberrant because, after all, I travelled a distinctly different path, leaving home at seventeen to explore the world. They might characterize much of what I do and say today as “high faluttin nonsense.”
We need books to inspire us, to help us learn and as a means to escape reality. As a reader and as an educator, can you talk about the importance of having access to a wide variety of books, especially as children?
I could never do justice to the importance of books in children’s lives. It was not until I began to read a variety of books that I was able to see beyond the constraints of the segregated world that defined my parents’ lives. That world stifled learning, ambition and knowledge of others. Indeed, it was principally through books that I began to appreciate that lives could be lived differently and with greater personal empowerment. Books gave me an appetite for learning that I could not stanch. Most importantly, the interaction with words on the page empowered me and enriched me. Even the most economically challenged of us can marshal the affirming power of words, meaningfully and accurately composed, to express who we are, what we want, and how we see the world. And we can see that world through books.
I loved reading about your college traveling experiences. I’m wondering if you ever combined your interest in travel and reading to visit a favorite book setting or conduct some other sort of “book pilgrimage?”
Those who have read Proust recall the episode in In Search of Lost Time when the narrator felt emerge from a sip of tea powerful memories of his childhood. My search for an understanding of my own childhood is replete with Proustian moments where, stimulated by sensory impressions, events and memories have come flooding back to me. I even spent different periods in France trying to connect to my experience reading Proust.
One of the elements in your book that touched me the most was how you “learned from experience that knowledge of a people is best constructed person by person.” Having lived and worked in so many parts of the country, what can you tell us about how this understanding has impacted your life?
People are often confused by how I can move through so many different environments with ease. Learning from my childhood experience of racial segregation – it produced ignorant assumptions about others, for example – persuaded me that I wanted, more than anything, to live a life devoid of bias and animus directed at others solely because they were different from me. Having been victimized by such attitudes, I also wanted to find ways of healing the pain inflicted by such behavior. One way to do that was to rely on education in a willfully diverse setting to instill open mindedness and help individuals move beyond the propensity to view others negatively.
The fact that I’ve been able to move about the world without being categorized as appropriate to just one group or setting has been a major aspect of my career. I served at Spelman, Princeton, Smith, Brown and Prairie View without any sense that one setting was more comfortable to me than another. This attitude allowed me to focus on the importance of learning for all people and not on a select few.
Teachers who helped you along your journey really came to life on the pages of Up Home. I was especially drawn to Mrs. Caraway and her “uniquely colorful, if crude, warnings.” (Her tuna salad also sounds delicious!) I’m wondering how you related to your students and how that changed as the world and education changed?
Teachers like Mrs. Caraway, Miss Ida Mae and Mrs. Lillie were, in many ways, my models for how to relate to my own students. Like them, I have tried to relate to students beyond the classroom. Because of how I looked to my own teachers for guidance, I’ve been acutely aware that students are watching me, needing my encouragement, and, at times, emulating me. That awareness has given me the wherewithal to hew to a consistent course in my behavior and actions so that they will not be confused about who I am and what matters to me.
What are you enjoying most about living in the South again? Is there anything surprising about returning to the place you were born after so many years?
I especially appreciate being with my siblings after so many years away. Most of all, I am pleased that I have been true enough to my roots that I have returned to and embraced my origins. That fact alone is important to me. It affirms that I do not consider myself to be better than where I come from, even though I am different today from where my beginnings should have taken me. That I have finally been able to integrate every part of my life gives me enormous satisfaction.
You talk about becoming someone you weren’t “supposed” to be. What advice do you have for people, including writers, educators and everyone in between, who are looking to carve out a more unexpected path for themselves?
Live life faithful to who you think you are no matter how others perceive you. Doing so will provide the creativity, the confidence and the courage needed to fuel your journey.
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