Beckford toured with the acclaimed dancer/choreographer Katharine Dunham when she was just 17. She started the Ruth Beckford African Haitian Dance Company, taught Dunham technique at her dance studios in Oakland and San Francisco, and started the first modern dance department at a recreation department in the country. As talented as she was as a dancer, her interests were wide-ranging; she took up acting, wrote three…
SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News at 07:35PM on May 9, 2019