Ruffin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to John St. Pierre, of French and African descent from Martinique, and Elizabeth Matilda Menhenick from Cornwall, England.

During the American Civil War, they helped recruit black soldiers for the Union Army, specifically the 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments.

[1] In 1910, Ruffin helped form the Boston chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

[9] When her husband George died at the age of 52 in 1886, Ruffin used her financial security and organizational abilities to start the Woman's Era, the country's first newspaper published by and for African American women.

While promoting interracial activities, the Woman's Era called on black women to demand increased rights for people of their race.

[13] In 1894, Ruffin organized the Woman's Era Club, an advocacy group for black women, with the help of her daughter Florida Ridley and Maria Baldwin, a Boston school principal.

[2] Southern women were in positions of power in the General Federation and, when the executive committee discovered that all of the New Era's club members were black, they would not accept Ruffin's credentials.

[1] Ruffin and her husband had five children: Hubert, an attorney; Florida Ridley, a school principal and co-founder of Woman's Era; Stanley, an inventor; George, a musician; and Robert, who died before his first birthday.