Overview

"An inspiring, indelible memoir from the daughter of sharecroppers in East Texas who became the first Black president of an Ivy League University-an uplifting story of girlhood and the power of family, community, and the classroom to transform one young person's life. 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 becomethe 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."

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9780593446003

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Reviews

“This poignant coming of age memoir by the phenomenal educator, Ruth Simmons, tenderly reveals the adversities and pleasures of a girlhood spent in poverty during the height of racial segregation. Surrounded by kin in a sharecropping community with more than its fair share of troubles, Simmons turned to the land, books, and life-changing mentors who sparked her imagination and opened new life possibilities. Up Home is an ode to powerful mothers and teachers everywhere whose small acts of love and encouragement pave the way for individual success, community pride, and future greatness.”—Tiya Miles, author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, winner of the National Book Award

"“Simmons provides an extensive, engrossing family history of both the land they worked and the people she met along her voyage away from rural Texas to the highest rungs of academia. . . . A declaration of love and the constant journey homeward from a brilliant mind . . . [an] inspiring story.”—Kirkus Reviews ​“[A] poignant and inspiring memoir . . . The author’s humility (‘I do not regard the circumstances of my childhood as more difficult or more glorious than another’s’) and tenderness make this a fiercely memorable debut.”—Publishers Weekly “With a light touch and a bold spirit, Ruth J. Simmons’s richly textured account of her journey from sharecroppers’ daughter to three college presidencies invites us to see how worlds of opportunity and experience opened up to her through the wonders of dedicated teachers, a quality education, and her own love of learning. Told with both forthrightness and humility, this compellingly written memoir is a story of dreaming and becoming, of breaking out of what is supposed to be and discovering what can be. Up Home is far more than a record of the path to success of one of the truly great college presidents in the history of American education; it is a riveting work of literature, destined to take its place in the canon of great African American autobiographies. Simmons’s best friend and confidante, Toni Morrison, would be proud!”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University “Up Home is an extraordinary American story. Yes, there is the remarkable journey from the poverty of sharecropping in a small Texas town to walking the halls of Harvard to the presidency of some of the country’s most illustrious institutions of higher learning. But, more importantly, Up Home is a love letter to family, to the Black teachers and institutions that loved and inspired Ruth Simmons—people and places that urged her to dream beyond her circumstance and to imagine herself in the most expansive of terms. It is the story of the power of self-creation in community.""—Eddie S. Glaude Jr., New York Times bestselling author of Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own “This poignant coming of age memoir by the phenomenal educator, Ruth Simmons, tenderly reveals the adversities and pleasures of a girlhood spent in poverty during the height of racial segregation. Surrounded by kin in a sharecropping community with more than its fair share of troubles, Simmons turned to the land, books, and life-changing mentors who sparked her imagination and opened new life possibilities. Up Home is an ode to powerful mothers and teachers everywhere whose small acts of love and encouragement pave the way for individual success, community pride, and future greatness.”—Tiya Miles, New York Times bestselling author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, winner of the National Book Award"

Author Information

Ruth J. Simmons is the former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M University, Texas's oldest HBCU, and the former vice provost of Princeton. She earned her bachelor's degree from Dillard University and her master's and doctorate from Harvard in Romance languages and literatures. 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. She lives in Texas.

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