Ruby Bridges
Civil Rights Hero
Ruby Bridges was born in Mississippi in 1954 and moved to New Orleans at the age of two. In 1960, the NAACP contacted Ruby's parents in seeking children to participate in the integration of the New Orleans schools. Ruby's parents felt it was their obligation to better their children's lives and help change a discriminatory system. They said yes to the NAACP and in doing so, changed their lives and Ruby's forever.
On November 14, 1960, Ruby Nell Bridges became the first African-American child to desegregate an elementary school. On that day, federal marshals escorted Ruby into William Frantz Public School in New Orleans, Louisiana, and into history. Her brave march into school attracted attention locally and nationwide - and much of it negative. Angry protesters yelled at Ruby and held up intimidating signs and symbols. White parents pulled their children from the school and boycotted William Frantz elementary for a year. The size of Ruby's class that first year? One. Two, if you count her teacher, Mrs. Henry. Still, Ruby went to school every day.
Ruby Bridges' story has been depicted in Norman Rockwell's picture "The Problem We All Live With", and in Robert Coles' The Story of Ruby Bridges. Ruby has published her own version of her experience in Through My Eyes. Ruby is in great demand as a speaker and lecturer and visits schoolchildren across the country to recount her story and instill her message of appreciation of all differences.
Ruby started the Ruby Bridges Foundation as a not-for-profit 501c3 organization to promote and encourage the values of tolerance, respect, and appreciation of all difference, through educational programs. With the belief that prejudice and racism can be eliminated, the foundation's objective is to change society, through the education and inspiration of children. Racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using our children to spread it.
Ruby is married with four children and resides in New Orleans
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