Ruth Polk Patterson (1930-1988) was born to Arthur and Mattie Polk near Nashville (Howard County), Arkansas. After graduating from Childress High School (Nashville, Arkansas) in 1949, she married Thomas Edward Patterson. In 1956 she attended the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and graduated in 1958 with a bachelor's degree in English. She then began teaching in the Arkansas public schools, teaching first in Crossett (Ashley County), and later in Nashville. In 1962, the family moved to Little Rock, where she taught at Horace Mann High School. She received a master's degree in English from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, in 1967, and in 1977 she obtained a doctorate in American studies from Emory University in Atlanta. Her dissertation was a study of an Afro-American Studies program in the Little Rock School District which Patterson implemented and administered between 1973 and 1980.

In addition to her teaching career, Patterson organized the Little Rock branch of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History in 1975 and was active in the Educators to Africa program. She published several articles including "Movin' On Up the Road--Black Migration from Fordyce, Arkansas to Las Vegas, Nevada" (1984). In 1985 it was made into a television documentary for which she wrote the screenplay. Perhaps Ruth Polk Patterson is best known for her book, The Seed of Sally Good'n, which was published in 1985.