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ABOUT
Ruby
Nell Sales is a highly-trained, experienced, and deeply-committed
social activist, scholar, administrator, manager, public theologian, and
educator in the areas of Civil, Gender, and other Human Rights. She is
an excellent public speaker, with a proven track record in conflict
resolution and consensus building. Ms. Sales has preached around the
country on race, class, gender, and reconciliation, and she has done
ground-breaking work on community and nonviolence formation. Ms. Sales
also serves as a national convener of the Every Church A Peace Church
Movement.
Along
with other SNCC workers, Sales joined young people from Fort Deposit,
Alabama who organized a demonstration to protest the actions of the
local White grocery-store owners who cheated their parents. The group
was arrested and held in jail and then suddenly released. Jonathan
Daniels, a White seminarian and freedom worker from Episcopal Divinity
School in Cambridge, Massachusetts was assassinated as he pulled Sales
out of the line of fire when they attempted to enter Cash Grocery Store
to buy sodas for other freedom workers who were released from jail. Tom
Coleman also shot and deeply wounded Father Richard Morrisroe, a priest
from Chicago. Despite threats of violence, Sales was determined to
attend the trial of Daniels' murderer, Tom Coleman, and to testify on
behalf of her slain colleague.
 As
a social activist, Sales has served on many committees to further the
work of reconciliation, education, and awareness. She has served on the
Steering Committee for International Women's Day, Washington, D.C.; the
James Porter Colloquium Committee, Howard University, Washington, D.C.;
the Coordinating Committee, People's Coalition, Washington, D.C.; the
President's Committee On Race, University of Maryland; and the Coalition
on Violence Against Women, Amnesty International, Washington, D.C. She
was a founding member of Sage Magazine: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women. Sales received a Certificate of Gratitude for her work on Eyes on the Prize. Additionally, she was featured in Broken Ground: A Film on Race Relations in the South,
by Broken Ground Productions. From 1991-1994, Sales founded and
directed the national nonprofit organization Women of All Colors,
dedicated to improving the overall quality of life for women, their
families, and the communities in which they live. Women of All Colors
organized a week-long SisterSpeak that brought more than 80 Black women together to set a national agenda.
 In
2000, Dan Rather spotlighted Sales on his “American Dream” Segment. In
1999, Selma, Alabama gave Sales the key to the city to honor her
contributions there. In 2007, Sales moved to Columbus, Georgia, where
she organized: a southern summit on racism; a national write-in campaign
to save Albany State from being merged into a White college; a
grassroots and media campaign to shed light on the death of seventeen
year old, Billye Jo Johnson, who allegedly killed himself on a dark road
in Lucedale, Mississippi when a deputy stopped him for speeding; Long
Train Running Towards Justice, which celebrated the work of Black
teachers during segregation and explored the ways that the Black school
culture has been destroyed by White officials under the guise of
desegregation; and a meeting with students at Savannah State to assist
them in organizing and mobilizing a move by officials to merge Savannah
State with a White college.
In
2009, the History Makers named her a History Maker for her
contributions to civic affairs. The Veterans of Hope Project selected
her to be a part of its video series. Her video “Standing Against the
Wind” has been shown at colleges around the nation.
Sales
serves as the founder and director of the SpiritHouse Project.
SpiritHouse Project is a national organization that uses the arts,
research, education, action, and spirituality to bring diverse peoples
together to work for racial, economic, and social justice, as well as
for spiritual maturity.
SpiritHouse
Project houses The Jonathan Daniels and Samuel Young Institute for
Racial Justice, which (1) supports and prepares a new generation of
peace and justice workers who want to discern a call to social justice
and nonviolence; (2) strengthens their courage, hope, resolve, and
reason to do this work; (3) prepares them to play leading roles in
public policy debates about issues such as poverty, prison industrial
complex, militarism, the shrinking budget for human needs, voting
rights, privacy and judicial issues, and neo-conservatism; and (4) helps
grassroots communities meet their urgent need for trained and committed
volunteers or staff. Throughout her career, Sales has mentored young
people and provided support and venues for an intergenerational
community of developing and seasoned social justice performing and
creative artists. Sales has a deep commitment to providing the
education, practical experiences, and frame of references to contest
racism and add their voices to a public conversation on the many streams
of oppression that emerge from it.
SpiritHouse
also houses SisterAll Programs that bring Black women together in
assemblies, classrooms, and performance spaces to renew our historical
roles as a community of activists, spiritual guides, and leaders who
stand and work on the front lines for racial, economic, and human rights
using the tools of nonviolence and participatory democracy. SisterAll
One was a community-building project that called together black female
scholars, activists, artists, students, workers, practitioners, and lay
and ordained spiritual leaders between the ages of 18 and 35, alongside
older Black women who have been long distance runners for justice.
Ruby
Sales’ Spirit House Project interns will share what they have learned
in their work tracking the different points of connection within the
Prison Industrial Complex and Criminal Justice Reform.
Spirit House is located at 1884 Ponce De Leon Avenue NE #1, Atlanta, GA 30307
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