Ruby Bridges
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Ruby Bridges Hall (born Ruby Nell Bridges September 8, 1954 in Tylertown, Mississippi) moved with her parents to New Orleans, Louisiana at the age of two. In 1960, when she was six years old, her parents responded to a call from the NAACP and volunteered her to participate in the integration of the New Orleans School system. She became the first black child to attend William Frantz Elementary School, and the first black elementary school child to attend a white school in Louisiana.
Due to white opposition to integration, she needed protection to enter the school, and as local and state officials were unwilling to provide it she was accompanied by federal marshals. Her mother had warned her that there "might be a lot of people outside this new school", but other than that she had no warning of the crowds of screaming racists she had to pass through to enter the school. As she describes it, "driving up I could see the crowd, but living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras. There was a large crowd of people outside of the school. They were throwing things and shouting, and that sort of goes on in New Orleans at Mardi Gras." Her walk into the school on her first day, November 14, 1960, was commemorated by Norman Rockwell in a painting called The Problem We All Live With. As soon as Ruby got into the school, white parents went in and brought their own children out; all but one of the white teachers also refused to teach while a black child was enrolled. Only Barbara Henry, who was from Boston, Massachusetts, was willing to teach Ruby, and for over a year Mrs. Henry taught her alone, "as if she were teaching a whole class".
Ruby's family suffered for their decision to send her to William Frantz Elementary: her father lost his job, and her grandparents, who were sharecroppers in Mississippi, were turned off their land.
Ruby Bridges, now Ruby Bridges Hall, still lives in New Orleans. She is now chair of the Ruby Bridges Foundation, which she formed in 1999 to promote "the values of tolerance, respect, and appreciation of all differences". Describing the mission of the group, she says, "[r]acism is a grown-up disease.
On October 27, 2006, the city of Alameda, California dedicated a new elementary school to Ruby Bridges, and issued a proclamation in her honor.
