Personal Life and Activism
Ruby Wallace married blues singer Frankie Dee in the mid-1940s but later divorced him. Three years later she married actor Ossie Davis.
Together, Dee and Davis wrote an autobiography in which they discuss their political activism as well as insights on their open marriage. Together they had three children: son, blues musician Guy Davis, and two daughters, Nora Day and Hasna Muhammad. Dee has survived breast cancer for more than 30 years. Dee and Davis were well-known civil rights activists. Among others, Dee is a member of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the NAACP, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Delta Sigma Theta sorority and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Dee and Davis were both personal friends of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, with Davis giving the eulogy at Malcolm X's funeral in 1965.
In November 2005 Dee was awarded - along with her late husband - the Lifetime Achievement Freedom Award, presented by the National Civil Rights Museum located in Memphis. Dee, a long-time resident of New Rochelle, New York, was inducted into the Westchester County Women's Hall of Fame on March 30, 2007, joining such other honorees as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Nita Lowey. In 2009 she received an Honorary Degree from Princeton University.
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