Ruth Russell Williams

RUTH RUSSELL WILLIAMS

by her daughter Paula Russell Evans

Ruth Russell Williams (1932-2010) was born and raised on a farm in Townsville North Carolina, her family worked as Sharecroppers while her grandmother served as a housekeeper for a plantation owner (Mr. Robert Taylor). That plantation [MacPelah] is still there today on Hwy 39 in Townsville. At an early age in elementary school in Townsville NC, she had big dreams and told her teacher she was going to be somebody big one day. At her surprise her teacher knocked her dream down and told her she wasn’t going to be anything special. She didn’t stop there, she kept on dreaming.

At the age of 16, Ruth married her first husband Odell Russell and moved to Richmond Va. In that marriage they had 4 children. She went to Apex Beauty College in Richmond Va. After graduating from beauty college, she opened and operated her first salon (Ruth’s Beauty World) in the back of their home, and later on Nine Mile Road in Richmond Va.

In 1966 she relocated to North Carolina and continued to work in the beauty business and opened Ruth’s Beauty World in Henderson North Carolina. She still was pushing her dreams to be somebody big. Through the years in the Beauty industry, she created her own hair grease (Ruth’s Hair Grower) along with Ruth’s Relaxer and Carolina Curl, and she also had skin care and makeup products.

In 1974 she married her second husband Samuel Williams. They had a ceramic shop together. Ruth taught the ceramic classes. That was the start of her  painting. She fell in love with painting ceramics and then started painting on canvas. At the beginning she didn’t like how her skies and landscaping didn’t blend together. She took her first and last art class at Vance Granville Community College but quickly decided to teach herself how to paint and she kept on painting. Ruth participated in a Color Fest in downtown Henderson where her art began to start selling. Soon many people were buying her art, and then her art was being sold all over the world. She became a motivational speaker about being a Black business woman and an artist. She was being asked to go to colleges, high, middle and elementary schools for Black History Month to talk about her art.

Most of the people in her paintings are her relatives: her grandmother, mother, uncles, cousins, grandchildren, and herself. Ruth brings her perspective on life into her paintings from her childhood memories. Her paintings have appeared on the cover of Smithsonian Associate Magazine also in Our State North Carolina magazine along with newspapers, calendars, Christmas cards, TV shows, movies, commercials and in many peoples’ homes and churches. We are very proud she held on to her strong determination to never give up on that dream of becoming somebody big. She was a well-known entrepreneur, teacher, friend, mother, grandmother, great grandmother…but most of all she was a god-fearing woman.

One of her favorite bible verses was Joshua 1:7 which reads: “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the laws my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go…”