Ruby Bridges

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Young Ruby Bridges

Ruby Nell Bridges or usually known as Ruby Bridges is an American activist who became a symbol of the civil rights movement. When she was six years old, she is the youngest of a group of African American students to integrate schools in the American South. Ruby’s birth year coincided with the US Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, which ended racial segregation in public schools. [1]

History

Ruby Bridges was born on September 8, 1954, Bridges was the oldest of five children for Lucille and Abon Bridges, farmers in Tylertown, Mississippi. At her age of two, her parents moved their family to New Orleans, Louisiana looking for better work opportunities. [2] When Bridges was in kindergarten, she was one of the numerous African American understudies in New Orleans who were selected to take a test deciding if she could go to a white school. It is said the test was composed to be especially difficult with the goal that understudies would struggle passing. The thought was that if all the black children failed the test, New Orleans schools could possibly remain segregated for some time longer. In 1960, Bridges' parents were informed by authorities from the NAACP that she was the only one of six African American understudies who passes the test, which means Bridges would be the only African American understudies to go to the William Frantz School, the school near her house, and the first Black kid to attend an all-white primary school in the South. [3]

Ruby Bridges Escorted from School

Contribution

November 14, 1960, Ruby Bridges was only six years old, she walked with determination as she became the first African American understudies to integrate a primary school in the South. This journey prompts the progression of the Civil Rights Movement and made a pathway for further integration across the southern parts of the U.S. [4] Ruby and her mother were accompanied by four government marshals to go to the school each day that year. She walked past mobs screaming awful slurs at her. Determined, she later said she only became terrified when she saw a lady holding a black baby doll in a coffin. She went through her first day in the principal’s office because of the chaos created as vicious white parents not letting their children go to that school. Ruby was only accepted by one white Boston local teacher, Barbara Henry, and she was the only one that willing to teach her. During lunchtime, Ruby ate lunch alone and sometimes played with her teacher during a break, despite the things she went through she never missed a day of school that year. "Mrs. Henry," as Bridges would call her even as an adult. [5] On her second day, the environment near her school was much the same as the first, and for some time, it seemed as though Bridges wouldn't be able to attend class. Ruby was the only understudy in Henry's class because the other parents are not allowing their children to go to the same school as Ruby's and even threaten them, and send their children to other schools. For an entire year, Henry and Bridges sat one next to the other at two desks, working on Bridges' lessons. Ruby's first few weeks at Frantz School were difficult. She was confronted with blatant racism several times when she was escorted by the government marshall. On her second day of school, she was threatened by a woman that says she will poison her. After that, the harm marshals permitted her to eat only food from home. On another day, she was "welcomed" by a lady "a Black doll in a wooden coffin. [6] Bridges was the only student in attendance at the school between January and May 1961.

Bridges completed her elementary education in William Frantz. She later graduated and earned a degree in business and fork in travel and tourism for fifteen years. In 1999, she established the Ruby Bridges Foundation, which has some expertise in peace promotion and diversity education. [7] In 2000, she was made an honorary deputy marshal in a ceremony in Washington, DC. [8]

See also

References

  1. Ruby Bridges.Britannica. Retrieved January 29 2021.
  2. Michal, Debra Ruby Bridges. National Women's History Museum. 2015. Retrieved January 29 2021.
  3. Ruby Bridges Biography. Biography. 27 April 2017. Retrieved January 29 2021.
  4. Halsell, Betti. Ruby Bridges First Day of School Changed History. LA Sentinel. 21 Nov 2019. Retrieved January 29 2021.
  5. Michal, Debra Ruby Bridges. National Women's History Museum. 2015. Retrieved January 29 2021.
  6. Ruby Bridges Biography. Biography. 27 April 2017. Retrieved January 29 2021
  7. Brown, Nikki. Ruby Bridges. 64 Parishes. Retrieved January 29 2021.
  8. Michal, Debra Ruby Bridges. National Women's History Museum. 2015. Retrieved January 29 2021.