Library

CanceledAuthor Series: Ruth J. Simmons

This event has been canceled.

Join us as we celebrate Black History Month

Before Ruth J. Simmons became the first Black president of an Ivy League university, she spent part of her childhood in a home that had no running water, no electricity and no books to read. She says that part of her early experiences, as the 12th child of sharecroppers, are an important part of her journey to success. Join us as we discuss her book, "Up Home: One Girl's Journey." A Q&A will follow the presentation.

This program is only available in person at the East Regional Library.

As a destination for discovery, your Fort Worth Public Library is a location for learners of any age. We designed this program specifically for adults.

About the Book

up house simmons cover

In her book, Up Home: One Girl’s Journey, author Ruth J. Simmons explores how the people who love us when we are young shape who we become.

We meet her caring, tireless mother who managed to feed her large family with an often-empty pantry; her father, who refused to let racial and economic injustice crush his youngest daughter’s dreams; the doting brothers and sisters; and the attentive teachers who welcomed Ruth into the classroom, guiding her to a future she could hardly imagine as a child.

From the farmland of East Texas to Houston’s Fifth Ward to New Orleans at the dawn of the civil rights movement, Simmons depicts an era long gone but whose legacies of inequality we still live with today.Up Home is both an origin story set in the segregated South and the uplifting chronicle of a girl whose intellect, grace and curiosity guide her as she creates a place for herself in the world.

About the Author

Ruth J. Simmons is a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Rice University and Adviser to the President of Harvard University on HBCU Initiatives. She served as President of Prairie View A&M University until March 2023; was President of Brown University from 2001-2012; and President of Smith College from 1995-2001. Under her leadership, Prairie View was reclassified as an R-2 Research University and Brown made significant strides in improving its standing as one of the world’s finest research universities.

A French professor before entering university administration, Simmons held an appointment as a Professor of Comparative Literature and Africana Studies at Brown. After completing her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard, she served in various faculty and administrative roles at the University of Southern California, Princeton University, and Spelman College before becoming president of Smith College, the largest women’s college in the United States. At Smith, she launched a number of important academic initiatives, including an engineering program, the first at an American women’s college.

Simmons is the recipient of many awards and honors and has received over 40 honorary degrees from universities around the world. She is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on a number of boards including The MacArthur Foundation, Morehouse College, the Holdsworth Center, the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Houston Branch and Hines Global Income Trust. She received the Brown faculty’s highest honor, the Susan Colver Rosenberger Medal, in 2011 and was honored by the Prairie View faculty in 2022.