“All of us are standing on someone else’s shoulders. Someone else that opened the door and paved the way. And so, we have to understand that we cannot give up the fight, whether we see the fruits of our labor or not. You have a responsibility to open the door to keep this moving forward.”
Ruby Bridges (now Ruby Bridges Hall) was born September 8, 1954, less than four months after the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. That ruling declared “separate but equal” schools for black and white children, which had endured legally and in fact since the end of slavery, unconstitutional. As a kindergartener, Ruby lived only five blocks from an all-white school, but attended an all-Black school several miles away. She became a pioneer when, at age six, she was the first African American child to integrate a public school in Louisiana.
Bridges had to be escorted to Frantz Elementary in New Orleans by her mother and three US marshals because of threats of violence. Objects and obscenities were hurled at her as she walked. As soon as she entered the school, white parents removed their children and all but one teacher refused to teach while a black child was enrolled. Consequently, Bridges was the only child in her class for her entire year of first grade. Moreover, each morning, as the child walked to school, one woman threatened to poison her and another held up a black baby doll in a coffin.
In light of these threats, U.S. Marshals only allowed Bridges to eat food she brought from home and she had to be escorted to the bathroom. Although she was unable to eat in the cafeteria or recess with other children, she never missed a day of school. Fortunately, circumstances changed for the better during Ruby’s second year at Frantz Elementary. She was able to be in class with other students, she was no longer the only African American child in the class, and she was no longer greeted by protests each day.
The Bridges family paid a high price for their decision to send Ruby to their local school in pursuit of an equal education. Among other things, her father, a Korean War veteran, lost his job as a gas station attendant; her mother lost her job as well; the grocery store the family shopped at would no longer let them shop there; and her grandparents, who were sharecroppers in Mississippi, were put off their land.
Bridges is now an author, activist, and chair of the Ruby Bridges Foundation, which she formed to promote tolerance, respect, and appreciation of differences. She remains close with Barbara Henry, the now-retired white teacher who taught her in first grade and encourages kids to form meaningful and diverse relationships.
Read more about Ruby Bridges here and here
Watch a brief video about Ruby Bridges