Ruth Woldemichael

Ruth Woldemichael is one of the student co-founders of the Center for African and African American Studies alongside Karia White and Audrea Fryar. She will be graduating in May 2022 with double majors in International Affairs and Ethnic Studies and a Spanish minor.

Ruth, raised in Denver, Colorado as a first-generation student with both parents hailing from Tigray, Ethiopia, is a student, organizer, poet, and storyteller. She is a 2021 recipient of the Black Voices for Black Justice Fund alongside Olivia Gardener for their work around transformative activism, centering police divestment and resource allocation. Ruth is a published writer; her first personal essay, “Fighting to Survive and Thrive”, was published in the November 2020 issue of the Coloradan Alumni Magazine.

With her background in secondary education as an assistant math teacher, Ruth has also served as a co-facilitator for the annual Black Women LEAD Summit at the University of Denver, a Community Engagement Leader for CU Bear Creek Apartments, the Engagement and Community Outreach Intern for the University of Colorado System Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and the Former President of the Black Student Alliance on CU Boulder’s campus.

During the Fall 2021 semester, Ruth will be studying abroad in Ecuador as she continues her educational journey grounded in critical thinking, internationalism, decolonization, cross-cultural and lingual analysis, radical humanism, and community healing.

Ruth is so deeply humbled and honored to be in this work and in community with Dr. Reiland Rabaka and her fellow student co-founders; they are where she continues to be reminded of love- the nucleus of the CAAAS/the cause.