Rupert Florence Richardson (b. January 14, 1930, Navasota, Texas – d. January 24, 2008, Baton Rouge, Louisiana) was an American civil rights activist and civil rights leader who served as the national president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1992 to 1995, and as the national president emeritus of the NAACP following her term as president. She also worked in the Louisiana state government for 30 years.
Rupert Florence Richardson was born on January 14, 1930, in Navasota, Texas, to Albert S. Richardson and Mary Samuels Richardson. She was raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where her family moved to shortly after her birth, and attended public schools there. She married James A. Clemons Jr. of Lake Charles Louisiana, and the couple had eight children. In 1952, Richardson received a Bachelor of Science from Southern University (Baton Rouge), becoming a second-generation college graduate after her mother. In 1962, ten years after graduating from Southern University, Richardson graduated from McNeese State University with a Master of Counselling and Master of Psychology.
In 1965, Richardson found employment as a counselor in the Louisiana Department of Labor. Nine years later, she left that department to work at the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. While involved in the health department, Richardson centered her work on mental health and substance abuse services. She eventually became deputy assistant secretary of the department. From 1992 to 1994, Richardson was also deputy assistant secretary of state at the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Drug Abuse.
Richardson then struck out on her own, forming a healthcare consulting firm — Rupert Richardson and Associates. She also served on several boards for the state, which included the Louisiana Gaming Control Board, Louisiana Commission on Human Rights, Louisiana Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the Louisiana State University School of Social Welfare Advisory Committee, and the Governor's Council for Drug-Free Schools.
Richardson first joined the NAACP as a teenager in the 1940s, working in the anti-lynching movement and against racial segregation. She rose to become president of the Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP for sixteen years. Richardson was also active in the NAACP's national governance, serving on the NAACP board from 1981 to her death, as the NAACP vice president from 1984 to 1991, and as the president of the NAACP from 1992 to 1995. After leaving the presidency in 1995, Richardson was made president emerita of the NAACP.
As president, she oversaw an expansion of the NAACP's work to include increased focus on economic and health care disparities and environmental racism. After a 1995 scandal in which the NAACP's executive director Benjamin Chavis was revealed to have misused the organization's funds, Richardson worked to repair the NAACP's image. She created partnerships with groups such as the Harvard Business School.
From 1999 to 2008, Richardson chaired the NAACP's Health Committee, which she had advocated for the creation of, focusing on HIV/AIDS in the United States among minority groups. Towards the end of her life, Richardson remained active in civil rights, advocating on behalf of the Jena Six in 2006 and 2007. She was known as the "grand dame" of the organization. Julian Bond, an activist at the NAACP, said that "Rupert Richardson was in many ways the conscience of the NAACP".
On January 24, 2008, Richardson died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her body lay in state at the Old Louisiana State Capitol. After her death, Bobby Jindal, then Governor of Louisiana, declared January 31, 2008 to be "Rupert F. Richardson Day".
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Rupert F. Richardson, 78, Former N.A.A.C.P. Leader, Is Dead
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Rupert F. Richardson, a civil rights leader and a former national president of the N.A.A.C.P., died here on Thursday. She was 78.
Ms. Richardson collapsed and died as she was decorating a home she had recently moved into, her son, Thomas Clemons, told a Baton Rouge newspaper, The Advocate. An official cause of death has not been announced.
With the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Ms. Richardson led efforts to widen the organization’s scope of civil rights to include human rights and economic parity. From 1992 to 1995, she served nationally as the group’s president and was named president emeritus following that term.
Before that, she served eight years as vice president and also had a 16-year tenure as president of the Louisiana State Conference of the N.A.A.C.P., which created the Rupert F. Richardson Presidential Award in her honor.
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Funeral arrangements were pending but there were tentative plans to hold services in Baton Rouge and Lake Charles, her hometown, the group said Friday in a written statement.
“Rupert Richardson served the N.A.A.C.P. in many, many capacities; but she will be best remembered as a tireless crusader for justice in Louisiana,” said Julian Bond, chairman of the group’s national board of directors, in the statement.
In the late 1990s, Ms. Richardson served in the state Department of Health and Hospitals under Bobby Jindal, who is now governor.
She led the National Health Committee of the N.A.A.C.P., working to reduce H.I.V./AIDS cases, and she started her own health care consulting firm in 1994 after retiring as Louisiana’s deputy assistant secretary for alcohol and drug abuse. She also worked at the state level in the areas of health planning, mental health, employment and substance abuse.
Ms. Richardson, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Southern University and a master’s degrees in counseling and psychology from McNeese State University, also helped with efforts to re-evaluate the civil rights group’s mission and strategic plan, working with the Harvard University School of Business.
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In addition, she served as a member of the Louisiana Gaming Control Board, the Louisiana Commission on Human Rights, the Louisiana Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights and the advisory board of the Louisiana State University School of Social Welfare.
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