Ruby G. Woodson
Ruby Garrard Woodson (June 22, 1931 – February 8, 2008) was an educator and chemistry teacher who founded Cromwell Academy in Washington, D. C. and Florida Academy of African American Culture in Sarasota, Florida. She was born in Houston County, Alabama, but raised in Sarasota. Her mother, Ella Mae Garrard (later, Singleton) worked as a maid and later owned a small country store. Her father, David Garrard, was a farmer, and later a circus roustabout. She had one child, William G. Woodson. At the age of fifteen, she was the valedictorian of her class of 1947 when she was graduated from Booker High School in Sarasota. At the age of nineteen, in June 1951 Woodson was awarded her Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Florida A & M University in Tallahassee, Florida. She received her Master of Arts degree in education from American University in Washington, D.C. in 1960. Her masters thesis was entitled, Some Effects of the Atomic Era on the Teaching of High School Chemistry in the United States. Breaking racial barrier at Sarasota library In 1957, while she was on a vacation in her hometown of Sarasota and researching materials for completion of her master's degree,