Up Home is both an origin story set in the segregated South and a paean to the people鈥攎ostly siblings and teachers鈥攚ho helped raise young Ruth Simmons after the death of her beloved mother. The New York Times Book Review praised its formal, if slightly old-fashioned style, naming it an editor鈥檚 choice.
Dr. Simmons is the former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M, Texas鈥檚 oldest HBCU, and the former vice provost of Princeton University. She earned her bachelor鈥檚 degree from Dillard University and her master鈥檚 and doctorate from Harvard. 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.
Because Up Home is a clear-eyed account of one girl鈥檚 hunger for an education, which she sees as her ticket out of poverty, patriarchy, and racism. It belongs on the bookshelf alongside The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway who was, like Dr. Simmons, a president of Smith College.
"I saw speech as a way of standing up straight and declaring myself as someone who mattered," says Ruth Simmons in .