Ruth Clement Bond
African-American educator, civic leader, and quilt designer
Ruth Clement Bond (May 22, 1904 – October 24, 2005) was an African-American educator, civic leader and artist. As an educator, Bond taught at universities in Haiti, Liberia and Malawi. She headed the African-American Women's Association and in the course of her career advocated for women and children in the US, Afghanistan, the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo and Tunisia. As an artist, Ruth is notable for elevating the utilitarian quilt into an avant-garde work of social commentary. Three such quilts remain from this creative period in the 1930s. Those quilts were exhibited at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York and the Michigan State University Museum.
Early life and family
Ruth Elizabeth Clement was born in Louisville, Kentucky on May 22, 1904, to George Clinton Clement, a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and Emma Clarissa Williams Clement. She was the fourth of seven children.
In 1931, Clement married Dr. J. Max Bond Sr with whom she had three children: historian Jane Bond Howard, architect J. Max Bond Jr., and anthropologist George Clement Bond.
The public source identifies “Ruth Clement Bond” as african-American educator, civic leader, and quilt designer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ruth, Clement and Bond.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ruth Clement Bond”, the useful work is to connect “african-American educator, civic leader, and quilt designer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q96474234. VIAF identifies the subject as 8183160909261312870003. The Library of Congress control number is no2020148228. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1904, 2005 and 1931.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ruth Clement Bond” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.