Rubie Bond was born on a plantation in Pontotoc, Mississippi, June 8, 1906, her parents were Zack White and Dora White. The family lived in a cabin with two rooms, a combination living and bedroom and kitchen, heated by a fire place. She vividly recalled her life in the South with her father as a sharecropper in three different plantations, the family permitted a garden where they grew vegetables and raised chickens, sold eggs and her father planted cotton and corn, and ran a sugar cane mill.

Rubie and her sister Laura attended a one room ramshackle grade school for black children, with one teacher. On the way to school she passed a brick eight room school for white children, each room for a different class and each with its own teacher. She and Laura received their first books as a gift from the owner of the plantation, who gave them his children’s old school books.

In 1917, John McCord, whose parents had been neighbors of our family and who was a recruiter for Fairbanks Morse and Company, presented to my father the opportunity to move to Beloit. A job was offered and Fairbanks would provide the money for transportation, which would be paid back from his wages. The family settled at 932 Pleasant Street. Mr. Bond received wages of 12 cents an hour and worked 84 hours a week for a monthly salary of $40.32, and paid $20.00 a month for rent of their home.

Rubie attended Strong Elementary School and graduated from Beloit High School in 1925. She discovered that despite her grade point average of 90, she was denied employment opportunities in any Beloit factory or business that employed women in that era, because of her race. She met this challenge by enrolling at Beloit College, living at home and paying her tuition by jobs which included caring for children of the college faculty, cooking and a $75 grant for taking roll of freshman and sophomore students at required chapel events. She remained the only black student at Beloit College until Velma Bell, also a Beloit High School graduate, jointed her in 1926.

During her junior year at Beloit College, Rubie took time off because of the illness of her mother. She married Franklin McVeagh Bond and they started their family which would consist of three girls and three boys. The marriage was of 57 years, before the death of her husband in 1985.
Rubie personally observed and lived in the segregated South, her family came to Beloit for a better life. She sought and obtained an education, yet still found she was limited by her race to job opportunities for which she was more than able and qualified. She and her husband provided for the high school education of all of their six children and they went on to colleges and professional careers. She also became a Civil Rights Activist in times where such actions were not “politically correct” and many times she ran into obstructive racial prejudice.

Rubie was advisor of the Black Girl Reserve Club for the YWCA, which was not permitted to meet in the YMCA facilities. She convinced the local organization that her group was entitled to the same benefits of white girls, to be full members of the YWCA and to hold meetings at the Y. Even though the Girl Scouts held meetings in the public schools, no troop included black girls. Rubie again took the lead by organizing, and having recognized, an integrated troop to meet at Burdge School and soon all troops in all schools were integrated.

The 1920’s and 1930’s policy of segregating hospital rooms at the Beloit Municipal Hospital was changed by Rubie talking this injustice to the City and demanding the ceasing of such a policy in a tax supported institution.

She saw her six children graduate from high school and then go on to receive nursing degrees, attend law schools, become counselor’s, serve in the Peace Corps, become an artist, obtain a master’s degree in business administration and raise their families with the same solid foundations given to them by their parents. She was survived by her children, Bernice Bond Ellis, Franklin Bond, Ann Bond Davis, Laura Bond, Larry Bond and James Bond.

The history of Beloit is the story of people who came to Beloit to make a new life and create the diversity of its citizens that exists today. Rubie’s story is a telling part of our history, she came from the South, along with dozens of others and her contributions to the Beloit Community made it all that much the better.

She came from segregation and discrimination and yes, found segregation and discrimination, but worked as a leader to make changes in our Community. Her own words best express her belief:

“African-Americans are employed in many positions of responsibility today. This is excellent, but we must all work on attitudes. We must tolerate, respect and celebrate our differences and accentuate our many similarities. It is up to each of us to accept one another as we are. We must learn to live together in harmony.”