Ruth Batson

Who was Ruth Batson?

Ruth M. Batson was an American civil rights and education activist.

Batson's career began with the NAACP Boston Branch. While representing the NAACP in local, regional and national capacities, her most renowned accomplishment occurred in the early 1960s when she led the challenge to the Boston Public School system for educational equality for African American students in Boston.

She had charged school administrators and the School Committee with ignoring "a basic American concept that equal opportunity should be available to all people regardless of race, color, or creed."

Batson attended Boston University and Northeastern University. She retired as a tenured professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine Division of Psychiatry, after more than ten years.

She was a member of the board of visitors of Boston University’s School of Medicine; trustees, Boston City Hospital; member, Corporation of the Massachusetts General Hospital and former member of its board of trustees; and board member of Roxbury Community College Foundation.

She was the author of The Black Educational Movement in Boston: A Sequence of Historical Events, a comprehensive chronology documenting the heroic efforts and contributions of African American parents to educational history in Boston. Northeastern University published the manuscript of nearly 900 pages in October, 2001.