Batson (Ruth) is born in Roxbury.

The daughter of Jamaican immigrants Joel and Cassandra (Buchanan) Watson, Ruth Batson grows up on Woodrow Wilson Court, attends the Edward Everett School, Girls Latin School, the Nursery Training School of Boston, and receives a master’s degree from Boston University. She marries John Batson in 1940, runs unsuccessfully for Boston School Committee in 1951, becomes chairperson of the Boston Branch NAACP new Subcommittee on Public Education in 1963, and leads the campaign to desegregate the Boston pubic schools beginning in 1963.* Batson moves to 160 Ruthven Street, becomes chairwoman of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, director of the METCO program, and a professor at Boston University. She dies in Boston on October 28, 2003.