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Ruth LaCountess Harvey Wood Charity
Ruth LaCountess Harvey Wood Charity (April 18, 1924 - April 26, 1996) was an American attorney and activist throughout the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s. The majority of her career resided in Danville, Virginia, where she spent much of her energy defending civil rights activists in court. Her work as the president of the Howard University chapter of the NAACP aided in giving her the necessary experience to directly help black communities later in her professional career. Ruth LaCountess Harvey’s life began when she was born in January 1924 as the daughter of a baptist and a teacher. She was raised in the segregated Jim Crow Era of America, experiencing racism throughout her entire life as a black woman. This marginalization began as she went to a segregated school throughout adolescence (“Notable Virginia Women”). However, this did not stop Ruth LaCountess Harvey from becoming successful very quickly, graduating with great academic achievement and moving onto Howard University where she gained experience in peaceful protest as the president of the Howard chapter of the NAACP, and through leading sit-ins and walk-outs in areas such as Washington D.C. in 1944 (Hershman). She went onto law school where she then graduated and became an attorney (Hershman).

Early Life
In regards to the inner workings of Ruth LaCountess Harvey’s personal life, she married her first husband Harry Inman Wood in 1951, but kept her maiden name professionally (Hershman). Following their divorce in 1944, Harvey remarried in 1968 to Ronald Karl Charity, who also was the coach for popular tennis player Arthur Ashe (Hershman). After falling into a coma in 1996, Washington D.C., Ruth LaCountess Harvey Wood Charity passed away following waiting for a bus (Hershman). Ruth LaCountess Harvey’s personal life is rarely discussed, even as her name first appears. Little was to be found details of her personal interests or her day-to-day activities, but mainly mentionings of her job, how many people she helped, and her husband, but not as much about her alone. This demonstrates perfectly how women’s worth over the course of history is seen less as their personal achievements, but what either the men around her accomplished or what she was able to provide to others.

Career
Professionally, Ruth LaCountess Harvey involved herself heavily with Civil Rights Affairs. Primarily, Ruth LaCountess Harvey worked to defend political activists in court, such as those arrested following the 1963 Danville Protests, and worked to overturn their convictions on appeal (Hershman). These protests were against the segregation allowances in public areas at the time, such as parks, libraries, and positions in local government (Edmunds). Though the protests began peacefully, they began to accelerate to the point of violent breakouts of police brutality as America was still widely unaccepting of progessive ideas in regards to race and resorted to violence as a deterrent (Edmunds). These demonstrations during this time represent a small-scale example of the fight for racial liberation in 1960s America. Even today, parallels can be drawn to this time, such as the police brutality against protestors during the 1960s Civil Rights Movements via hoses and dogs, and police brutality during the Black Lives Matter Movement in 2020 via rubber bullets and police cars. The demonstrations began to get out of hand that Archibald Murphey Aiken placed a ban against most forms of public protest (Hershman). Harvey understood the weight of these issues and spent her talents as an attorney fighting for those who fell victim to these racist acts. Harvey’s work was not limited to activist defense, but spread to low-income whites as well, especially after funding for defending activists in court became too expensive and police brutality was skyrocketing (“Notable Virginia Women”). She also is credited for working tirelessly specifically on women’s issues, such as fighting for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (Hershman). Her work established Ruth LaCountess Harvey as an advocate for the poor alongside black communities, demonstrating her vast range of experience and her talent being applicable to multiple marginalized groups throughout her career. Her versatility and her talent in helping those who are disadvantaged earned her the name of being the most popular black woman in Virginia in the 1960s (Hershman). Due to this fame, she attempted to run for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates and for a seat in the House of Representatives, unfortunately losing both seats (Hershman). Despite all of the work Ruth LaCountess Harvey accomplished, she was unfortunately found guilty of embezzling over $51,000 from two of her clients, resulting in her loss of her license to practice law and nearly landing her in prison, but instead did community service with probation and repayment of the money (Hershman). She went on to work for the Fairfax Human Rights Commission, upholding her roots as an activist, and later getting her voting rights gracefully restored by Lawernce Douglas Wilder, a man who also made strives for the black community in Virginia through his seat in the Senate and his position as the first black individual to win a statewide election in Virginia (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica). The restoration of her right to vote brings her work full circle as she is once again able to participate in her civic duty after years of dedicating her life to said government.