Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Up Home by Ruth J. Simmons - Available

Up Home

One Girl's Journey

by Ruth J. Simmons
Ruth J. Simmons
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Simmons’s evocative account of her remarkable trajectory from Jim Crow Texas, where she was the youngest of twelve children in a sharecropping family, to the presidencies of Smith College and Brown University shines with tenderness and dignity.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)
“A riveting work of literature, destined to take its place in the canon of great African American autobiographies.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Bloomberg, BET

I was born at a crossroads: a crossroads in history, a crossroads in culture, and a geographical crossroad in North Houston County in East Texas.
Born in 1945, Ruth J. Simmons grew up the twelfth child of sharecroppers. Her first home had no running water, no electricity, no books to read. Yet despite this—or, in her words, because of it—Simmons would become the first Black president of an Ivy League university. The former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M, Texas’s oldest HBCU, Simmons has inspired generations of students as she herself made history.
In Up Home, Simmons takes us back to Grapeland to show 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. Written in clear and timeless prose, 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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 5, 2023

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593677537
      • File size: 197569 KB
      • Duration: 06:51:36

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Ruth Simmons gives a warmly engaging rendition of her memoir. Simmons was the first Black president of Smith College and went on to be the president of Brown University and Prairie View A&M University. Here, she recounts her childhood in Texas, growing up as the youngest of 12 children in a sharecropping family that lived in deep poverty. Simmons lovingly describes her close relationships with her siblings and her mother, often with an audible smile in her voice. When she loses her mother at age 15, listeners hear her aching grief. Educational opportunities and teachers who supported and influenced her awakened young Ruth's sense of who she could be in the world. Her inspiring story is an eminently moving listen. J.M.D. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading