Welcome to Mississippi Trails to the Past!
Ruby Bridges
Born on September 8, 1954, in Tylertown, Mississippi,
Ruby Bridges was 6 when she became the first
African-American child to integrate a white Southern
elementary school, having to be escorted to class by her
mother and U.S. marshals due to violent mobs. Bridges'
bravery paved the way for continued Civil Rights action and
she's shared her story with future generations in
educational forums.
Early Life
Ruby Nell Bridges was born on September 8, 1954, in
Tylertown, Mississippi, and grew up on the farm her parents
and grandparents sharecropped in Mississippi. When she was 4
years old, her parents, Abon and Lucille Bridges, moved to
New Orleans, hoping for a better life in a bigger city. Her
father got a job as a gas station attendant and her mother
took night jobs to help support their growing family. Soon,
young Ruby had two younger brothers and a younger sister.
The fact that Ruby Bridges was born the same year that the
Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision
desegregated the schools is a notable coincidence in her
early journey into civil rights activism. When Ruby was in
kindergarten, she was one of many African-American students
in New Orleans who were chosen to take a test determining
whether or not she could attend a white school. It is said
the test was written to be especially difficult so that
students would have a hard time passing. The idea was that
if all the African-American children failed the test, New
Orleans schools might be able to stay segregated for a while
longer. Ruby lived a mere five blocks from an all-white
school, but attended kindergarten several miles away, at an
all-black segregated school.
Her father was averse to his daughter taking the test,
believing that if she passed and was allowed to go to the
white school, there would be trouble. Her mother, Lucille,
however, pressed the issue, believing that Ruby would get a
better education at a white school. She was eventually able
to convince Ruby's father to let her take the test.
Escorted by Federal Marshals
In 1960, Ruby Bridges' parents were informed by officials
from the NAACP that she was one of only six African-American
students to pass the test. Ruby would be the only
African-American student to attend the William Frantz
School, near her home, and the first black child to attend
an all-white elementary school in the South. When the first
day of school rolled around in September, Ruby was still at
her old school. All through the summer and early fall, the
Louisiana State Legislature had found ways to fight the
federal court order and slow the integration process. After
exhausting all stalling tactics, the Legislature had to
relent, and the designated schools were to be integrated
that November. Fearing there might be some civil
disturbances, the federal district court judge requested the
U.S. government send federal marshals to New Orleans to
protect the children.
On the morning of November 14, 1960, federal marshals drove
Ruby and her mother five blocks to her new school. While in
the car, one of the men explained that when they arrived at
the school, two marshals would walk in front of Ruby and two
would be behind her. The image of this small black girl
being escorted to school by four large white men inspired
Norman Rockwell to create the painting "The Problem We All
Must Live With," which graced the cover of Look magazine in
1964.
When Ruby and the federal marshals arrived at the school,
large crowds of people were gathered in front yelling and
throwing objects. There were barricades set up, and
policemen were everywhere. Ruby, in her innocence, first
believed it was like a Mardi Gras celebration. When she
entered the school under the protection of the federal
marshals, she was immediately escorted to the principal's
office and spent the entire day there. The chaos outside,
and the fact that nearly all the white parents at the school
had kept their children home, meant classes weren't going to
be held.
Ostracized at School
On her second day, the circumstances were much the same as
the first, and for a while it looked like Ruby Bridges
wouldn't be able to attend class. Only one teacher, Barbara
Henry, agreed to teach Ruby. She was from Boston and a new
teacher to the school. "Mrs. Henry," as Ruby would call her
even as an adult, greeted her with open arms. Ruby was the
only student in Henry's class, because parents pulled or
threatened to pull their children from Ruby's class and send
them to other schools. For a full year, Henry and Ruby sat
side by side at two desks, working on Ruby's lessons. Henry
was very loving and supportive of Ruby, helping her not only
with her studies but also with the difficult experience of
being ostracized.
Ruby Bridges' first few weeks at Frantz School were not easy
ones. Several times she was confronted with blatant racism
in full view of her federal escorts. On her second day of
school, a woman threatened to poison her. After this, the
federal marshals allowed her to only eat food from home. On
another day, she was "greeted" by a woman displaying a black
doll in a wooden coffin. Ruby's mother kept encouraging her
to be strong and pray while entering the school, which Ruby
discovered reduced the vehemence of the insults yelled at
her and gave her courage. She spent her entire day, every
day, in Mrs. Henry's classroom, not allowed to go to the
cafeteria or out to recess to be with other students in the
school. When she had to go to the restroom, the federal
marshals walked her down the hall. Several years later,
federal marshal Charles Burks, one of her escorts, commented
with some pride that Ruby showed a lot of courage. She never
cried or whimpered, Burks said, "She just marched along like
a little soldier."
Effect on the Bridges Family
The abuse wasn't limited to only Ruby Bridges; her family
suffered as well. Her father lost his job at the filling
station, and her grandparents were sent off the land they
had sharecropped for over 25 years. The grocery store where
the family shopped banned them from entering. However, many
others in the community, both black and white, began to show
support in a variety of ways. Gradually, many families began
to send their children back to the school and the protests
and civil disturbances seemed to subside as the year went
on. A neighbor provided Ruby's father with a job, while
others volunteered to babysit the four children, watch the
house as protectors, and walk behind the federal marshals on
the trips to school.
After winter break, Ruby began to show signs of stress. She
experienced nightmares and would wake her mother in the
middle of the night seeking comfort. For a time, she stopped
eating lunch in her classroom, which she usually ate alone.
Wanting to be with the other students, she would not eat the
sandwiches her mother packed for her, but instead hid them
in a storage cabinet in the classroom. Soon, a janitor
discovered the mice and cockroaches who had found the
sandwiches. The incident led Mrs. Henry to lunch with Ruby
in the classroom.
Ruby started seeing child psychologist Dr. Robert Coles, who
volunteered to provide counseling during her first year at
Frantz School. He was very concerned about how such a young
girl would handle the pressure. He saw Ruby once a week
either at school or at her home. During these sessions, he
would just let her talk about what she was experiencing.
Sometimes his wife came too and, like Dr. Coles, she was
very caring toward Ruby. Coles later wrote a series of
articles for Atlantic Monthly and eventually a series of
books on how children handle change, including a children's
book on Ruby's experience.
Overcoming Obstacles
Near the end of the first year, things began to settle down.
A few white children in Ruby's grade returned to the school.
Occasionally, Ruby got a chance to visit with them. By her
own recollection many years later, Ruby was not that aware
of the extent of the racism that erupted over her attending
the school. But when another child rejected Ruby's
friendship because of her race, she began to slowly
understand.
By Ruby's second year at Frantz School it seemed everything
had changed. Mrs. Henry's contract wasn't renewed, and so
she and her husband returned to Boston. There were also no
more federal marshals; Ruby walked to school every day by
herself. There were other students in her second grade
class, and the school began to see full enrollment again. No
one talked about the past year. It seemed everyone wanted to
put the experience behind them.
Ruby Bridges finished grade school, and graduated from the
integrated Francis T. Nicholls High School in New Orleans.
She then studied travel and tourism at the Kansas City
business school and worked for American Express as a world
travel agent. In 1984, Ruby married Malcolm Hall in New
Orleans, and later became a full-time parent to their four
sons.
Recent Contributions
In 1993, Ruby Bridges' youngest brother, Malcolm Bridges,
was murdered in a drug-related killing. For a time, Ruby
looked after Malcolm's four children, who attended William
Frantz School. She began to volunteer at the school three
days a week and soon became a parent-community liaison. The
coincidence of all this, to have her brother's death bring
her back to her elementary school where so much had taken
place, didn't escape Ruby, but she wasn't sure why all this
happened. In 1995, she got her answer. Robert Coles,
Bridges' child psychologist, published a children's book on
his time with her, entitled The Story of Ruby Bridges. Soon
after, Barbara Henry, her teacher that first year at Frantz
School, contacted Bridges and they were reunited on The
Oprah Winfrey Show.
With Bridges' experience as liaison at the school, and her
reconnection with influential people in her past, she began
to see a need for bringing parents back into the schools to
take a more active role in their children's education. In
1999, Bridges formed the Ruby Bridges Foundation,
headquartered in New Orleans. The foundation promotes the
values of tolerance, respect, and appreciation of all
differences. Through education and inspiration, the
foundation seeks to end racism and prejudice. As its motto
goes, "Racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using
our children to spread it." In 2007, the Children's Museum
of Indianapolis unveiled a new exhibition documenting
Bridges' life, along with the lives of Anne Frank and Ryan
White.
Courtesy of biography.com