“and a little child shall lead them…” (Isaiah 11:6 ESV)
At the risk of taking the verse from Isaiah out of context which I freely admit I am doing; I believe it aptly describes the harrowing and brave steps that a young six-year-old Black girl took in November 1960 to the all-white Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. Ruby led the effort to desegregate Louisiana schools putting her life on the line of racial hatred. She was the first Black student to set foot in Frantz and things have never been the same since.
In the 1950s public schools in the south were on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement. The Supreme Court ruled in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision that separate schools are inherently unequal and schools, therefore, need to desegregate. This set off a firestorm across the South where white supremacists fought against desegregation virulently and sometimes violently.
In Virginia, some public schools shut down completely in protest. Segregated “Christian” schools were set up to allow all-white student bodies to continue. Many Black families were threatened with violence if they attempted to enter an all-white school in other communities.
New Orleans was no different than other southern cities and continued to enroll only white students in neighborhood schools while maintaining segregated, and fewer, Black schools that forced students to travel across town to attend. Such was the situation when Ruby’s family moved to New Orleans.
Born to Abon and Lucille Bridges in 1954, she was the oldest of five children. Ruby, as the oldest, often helped to care for and raise her younger siblings. When she was four years old, the family relocated from Tylertown, Mississippi, where Bridges was born, to New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1960, when she was six years old, her parents responded to a request from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). They volunteered her to participate in the integration of the New Orleans school system, even though her father was hesitant.
In 1957, federal troops were ordered to Little Rock, Arkansas, to escort the “Little Rock Nine” students in combating violence that occurred because of the decision. Ruby’s father was justifiably concerned about her kindergarten daughter being caught up in racial violence and hatred.
New Orleans was under significant pressure from the federal government to desegregate. The Orleans Parish School Board decided to administer an entrance exam to students at Bridges' school to keep black children out of white schools. It was an old trick used to keep Blacks from voting and the all-white school board assumed no Black students could pass it. Ruby and five other students passed the exam.
The all-white William Frantz Elementary School was only a few blocks from their home. Her father resisted sending her there, fearing for his daughter’s safety; her mother, however, wanted Ruby, now in 1st grade, to have the educational opportunities that her parents had been denied in Mississippi. Meanwhile, the school district dragged its feet, delaying her admittance until November 1960.
On November 14, Ruby and her mother were escorted by four federal marshals to the school every day for the remainder of that year. She walked past crowds screaming vicious slurs at her. Undeterred, she later said she only became frightened when she saw a woman holding a black baby doll in a coffin. She spent her first day in the principal’s office due to the chaos created as angry white parents pulled their children from school.
Barbara Henry, a white Boston native, was the only teacher willing to accept Ruby and all year, she was a class of one. Ruby ate lunch alone and sometimes played with her teacher at recess, but she never missed a day of school that year.
Meanwhile, there were protests throughout the city, although there were some supportive white families, and money came from Northern Civil Rights organizations when Abon lost his job due to Ruby’s attendance at Frantz. The Bridges family paid dearly for their courage. Even Ruby’s share-cropping grandparents were evicted from the farm where they had lived for a quarter-century. However, over time, other African American students enrolled; many years later, Ruby’s four nieces would also attend.
Ruby graduated from a desegregated high school, became a travel agent, married, and had four sons. She was reunited with her first teacher, Henry, in the mid-1990s, and for a time the pair had speaking engagements together. Ruby later wrote about her early experiences in two books and received the Carter G. Woodson Book Award.
A lifelong activist for racial equality, in 1999, Ruby established The Ruby Bridges Foundation to promote tolerance and create change through education. In 2000, she was made an honorary deputy marshal in a ceremony in Washington, DC.
Bridges is the subject of the Lori McKenna song "Ruby's Shoes". Her childhood struggle at William Frantz Elementary School was portrayed in the 1998 made-for-TV movie Ruby Bridges.
In 2005, Ruby and her husband lost their home in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The Frantz Elementary School was also damaged and Bridges worked to keep the school open and sought renovations.
In November 2007, the Children's Museum of Indianapolis unveiled a new permanent exhibit documenting her life, along with the lives of Anne Frank and Ryan White. The exhibit, called "The Power of Children: Making a Difference", cost $6 million to install and includes an authentic re-creation of Bridges' first-grade classroom.
On July 15, 2011, Bridges met with President Barack Obama at the White House, and while viewing the Norman Rockwell painting of her on display he told her, "I think it's fair to say that if it hadn't been for you guys, I might not be here, and we wouldn't be looking at this together". The Rockwell painting was displayed in the West Wing of the White House, just outside the Oval Office, from June through October 2011.
Throughout her adult life, Ruby Bridges-Hall received many honors and recognitions, as she should. Today, A statue of Bridges stands in the courtyard of William Frantz Elementary School. When asked what she hopes children will feel when seeing the statue, she responded:
“I think kids will look at it and think to themselves, 'I can do something great too.' Kids can do anything, and I want them to be able to see themselves in the statue. Hopefully, that will remind [them that they] can change the world.”
Wonderful. Thank you for these rich history lessons. I look forward to your post every morning.