Ruth Fox: Raising Consciousness as Well

When money and encouragement were short, as they usually were, for black students in Orange County who dreamed of college, Ruth Fox was there for 40 years.

Fox, 78, and a small group of women have helped more than 130 teen-agers go to college. Somebody had to, she said.

“When our kids were in school, they would have counselors. The counselors would not counsel young black kids to take classes that they needed to go on to college, only (woodworking or metal) shop and things they could do with their hands,” Fox said.

“We felt like our kids had as much brainpower as anybody else’s, and we felt they should have a choice to do whatever they wanted to do.”

Fox and the group she co-founded, Educational Extension Club of Orange County, raised money through beauty pageants, fashion shows and scholarship balls.

It was one of many civil rights battles Fox and her husband, Taft, 82, have fought since they moved to Santa Ana from Kansas in the 1940s.

The Foxes were founding members of the Orange County branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, and Taft Fox was one of the first presidents.

One of their battles was simply attending school functions, Ruth Fox said.

“It was just a foregone conclusion: No blacks would go.”

At her first school picnic, Fox said, white parents and administrators from Franklin Elementary School in Santa Ana were trying to find a task for her “that wouldn’t offend the others” and wouldn’t involve handling of food. Relegated to filling punch cups, Fox said she noticed some parents were not allowing their children to take any.

“They didn’t want to receive the drink, so they didn’t get any. I poured it out on the ground.”

As the first black to join certain groups, including the YWCA, Fox said she was used to “running up against brick walls.” She bumped another one when she wanted to attend a beauty school, she said.

“They told me they couldn’t teach me how to do black people’s hair. I told them, ‘You don’t have to teach me to do that. What I need to pass the board (exam) is to know how to do your hair.”

They did, and for 35 years she operated a beauty shop behind her home.

But there was one wall Ruth Fox could not hurdle. Three years ago, when the Educational Extension Club disbanded because members were simply too old, they looked for scholarship recipients from previous years to carry on the work.

“We tried to interest younger people, people who’d been through school,” Fox said. “Some of them would donate to the club, but they weren’t interested in joining. They were not interested enough to help someone else.”

She was disappointed not only for herself, Fox said, but for future generations of minority students who have no money for college.

“The need, I don’t think, will ever be wiped out. I think it’s more important than ever.”