Ruth Carter - iron woman of a Chicago ghetto

By Lela Jahn

Mentors show up where and when least expected. One of my mentors, who has been on my meditative council for decades, is an African American woman born and raised in the black ghetto of Chicago. Ruth Carter's death earlier this year has brought my memories of her vividly back to consciousness. Allow me to share a few of them with you.

Ruth was an incredibly gifted heroic and self-confident woman who embraced the opportunity to make a difference in the world even though that decision would bring her many great challenges in her professional life, albeit small in comparison to the challenges she faced in her personal life. Ruth and I became inseparable when as the Director of the 5th City Preschool in the late 60s my task was to identify and groom a woman from the community to replace me. That was a humongous challenge. And then I met a woman with piercing black eyes whose laugh invited all to love life. Ruth became the obvious choice as she was respected and loved by all whether black or white, young or old, businessman or gang member, educated or illiterate; and she believed in her dream. The dream that children everywhere have a right to see themselves as unique and unrepeatable human beings. She helped give meaning to the phrase "Black is Beautiful" before it was ever coined as she led the 250 preschool children and the staff in the following song sung by all every day:

                       "I'm the only one like me.
                        I'm the greatest, Can't you see?
                        I want to be the great one I am.
                        I'm the only one who can!"

So the journey started. While I was training Ruth to be an administrator of a preschool, Ruth, unbeknown to me at the time, was becoming my mentor. Imagine a white 28 year old trying to make sense of a very small black boy living with his third foster family being inappropriate with a little girl at nap time. I was about to shake the daylights out of him, when Ruth gently grabbed my arm and reminded me that what he needed was someone to talk with him and educate him. Being shuttled from family to family he had no idea what was inappropriate. He was just used to sleeping with other people in one bed as that was all they had. That lesson was never forgotten. Walk in someone else's shoes before making a judgment. It was but one of many lessons Ruth taught me.

We were together for four very difficult and exhilarating years of the Preschool.  One of the more difficult times we faced soon after I arrived was losing one of our major funding sources and having to scurry around to find other means of paying our community staff. There were a couple of months when they received half their salary. That did not make anyone very happy and I was at wits end. Ruth to the rescue. As the five other community teachers were threatening to leave, she reminded them of one of the kids’ favorite songs:

                             I'm always running into doors that shut,
                             but I can live no matter what.
                             I'm alive and here I am,
                             I decide as the only one who can.

The end of that story is we did get new funding. The teachers did not leave and they all eventually got raises. Yet there were other valleys where Ruth never flinched, never complained. She stood firm in her belief that the 5th City Preschool was a demonstration to the world of the importance of  providing all children from  four months on up with a positive self-image.

Then there were the victories we experienced in those years because of her compassion and understanding that the debilitating reality of the community she lived in did not determine her success, did not block her resolve as it came from within. Victories: attending a national preschool workshop where the 5th City curriculum received a National 1st place award from the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO); receiving teaching machines from IBM for the four year olds, which got our picture in the newspaper because of the audacity of believing machines could teach young children; making really cool uniforms for all the teachers; designing the new preschool building on 5th Avenue with Sheldon Hill which still stands today - the list goes on and on.

While all this was going on, Ruth became a widow at an early age, left with the sole responsibility of successfully raising three children of her own. Yet she persevered, and became for me the profound symbol of a woman to whom "impossible" had no meaning. This became clear for me, when the Ruth I knew, who had to hide from the City inspectors because she was teaching without a high school diploma, was officially named Director of the 5th City Preschool with a college degree in Early Childhood Education.

I last saw Ruth in 2006 when we had a lovely dinner with Lela Mosley. Shortly thereafter, she retired as the Fifth City Preschool Director, but never retired from being a sign to all the world of profound caring for one's community and defining that community as the whole world.

Ruth Carter will always be my mentor, my symbol of the Iron Woman standing in the desert with arms outstretched, knowing that the desert could become the Promised Land. And it did because she lived - and still does in the lives of all she touched.

Ruth demonstrated leadership qualities combined with compassion and understanding for the debilitating circumstances of living in a community that society had cast aside. But she had not finished high school and therefore could not be recognized as a teacher, much less the director of the preschool. She became my right hand and the unofficial assistant director commanding the respect of her fellow teachers and the entire community. After I left Chicago and moved to Kenya, I kept in touch with Ruth.

Ruth Carter - Iron Woman. Ruth and I were joined at the hip for three years in the late 60s when I was the director of the 5th City Preschool. She was my right and left hand. She and I climbed many mountains together - attending a national preschool workshop because the curriculum received 1st place in the nation, receiving teaching machines for all of the four year olds and getting our picture in the newspaper because of the audacity of thinking machines could teach, creating games to beat the numerous inspections, designing really cool uniforms for all the teachers, designing the new preschool building on 5th Avenue with Sheldon Hill - and the list goes on and on. And there were many valleys where Ruth never flinched, never complained, stood firm in her belief that the 5th City Preschool was a demonstration to the world of the importance of providing all children no matter what age with a positive self-image. Ruth Carter became my symbol, our symbol of the Iron Woman standing in the desert with arms outstretched, knowing that the desert will be the Promised Land because she lived - and still lives in the lives of all she touched