John W. Ruffin Jr., philanthropist and entrepreneur who helped minority students, dies at 79
People stood up straighter when John W. Ruffin Jr. walked into a room.
That was the sentiment echoed by family and friends of Ruffin Jr. when asked to describe him. They attributed the swagger to his debonair attire that managed to impress despite a rigid corporate dress code. The way he carried himself, his humble demeanor and commitment to education not only turned heads, but inspired countless individuals.
So when Ruffin Jr. was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1995, he fought gallantly, never losing an ounce of that inherent suaveness. Ruffin died Friday at his home in Coral Springs. He was 79.
“Doctors used to say he was five times a miracle,” Dorothy “Dottie” Ruffin, his wife of 46 years, said of his 25-year diagnosis with cancer.
An entrepreneur and philanthropist, Ruffin Jr.’s generosity left an indelible mark on the South Florida community. He helped raise millions of dollars in scholarships for minority students to attend Florida Memorial University and Nova Southeastern University’s H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship, the latter of which he was founding trustee.
His leadership and talent for fundraising helped earn him chairman positions in several organizations including the Broward County chapters of both the United Negro College Fund and the Urban League.
The importance of education was instilled in Ruffin Jr. from the start. He was born on June 15, 1941, in Moncure, N.C., to parents who worked as educators. Their teaching pushed him to not just obtain a bachelor’s from Morgan State University but to get his master’s degree in marketing and industrial relations from Cornell.
Ruffin Jr. spent time in New York City and New Jersey before taking a job with Food Fair/Pantry Pride that moved him to South Florida in 1980. The job would make him one of the first Black vice presidents in the country.
He then set his sights on another area: radio. In 1986, Ruffin and his business partner Reese Marshall bought WRBD, effectively making it South Florida’s first Black-owned radio station.
“Wherever John went ... he always wanted diversity,” Dottie Ruffin said, adding that empowering the Black community motivated his purchase of WRBD.
A slew of other entrepreneurial ventures followed. There was J.D. Ruffin Associates, a business that he started with his wife that operates concession retail shops to this day; the Ruffin Group, a consulting firm; and Trans Ocean Holdings, which worked to establish economic relationships among the U.S., Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.
“The business acumen that he had — as I began to learn when I was on the board with him at Florida Memorial — was exceptional,” said Horace Hord, the secretary of the board of trustees at Florida Memorial.
His time with Trans Ocean brought him to Ghana where a local tribe even made him a nana or royalty, something that Dottie chuckles about to this day.
“Because of his relationship with the chief over there, he was made a chief,” Dottie Ruffin said, her voice filled with pride.
As Ruffin’s stature in the community grew, so did his philanthropic efforts. For more than three decades he created scholarship opportunities for students in South Florida and North Carolina.
Ruffin’s work with UNCF included raising more than $1 million for scholarships in Broward. The organization rewarded his effort with an eponymous scholarship of his own. Florida Memorial, for which he served on the board of trustees for nearly 18 years, created the John and Dorothy Ruffin Endowed Scholarship fund. The Miami Gardens-based university, along with Morgan State, also awarded him an honorary doctorate degree.
“Good people die every single day but they don’t always affirm for us the commitment to share and care about other people and the next generation like Dr. Ruffin did,” said Bill McCormick, the chairman of the board of trustees at Florida Memorial.
In addition to his wife, Ruffin is survived by two children, Jonathan and Jehan, as well as three grandchildren.
Florida Memorial plans on hosting a celebration of life ceremony, the details of which have yet to be determined.
This story was originally published July 30, 2020 at 11:18 AM.
