A Few Words About Ruby Bridges — Phoebe&Egg (2024)

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What is a short paragraph about Ruby Bridges? ›

Ruby Nell Bridges Hall is an American Hero. She was the first African American child to desegregate William Frantz Elementary School. At six years old, Ruby's bravery helped pave the way for Civil Rights action in the American South.

Ruby faced blatant racism every day while entering the school. Many parents kept their children at home. People outside the school threw objects, police set up barricades. She was threatened and even “greeted" by a woman displaying a black doll in a wooden coffin.

Wear purple! It's Ruby's favorite color. Ask your school to participate.

What made Ruby Bridges famous? Photographs of her going to school inspired Norman Rockwell to paint The Problem We All Live With. Bridges wrote a memoir, Through My Eyes, and a children's book, Ruby Bridges Goes to School. Her story was told in a TV movie, Ruby Bridges.

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 did speaking engagements together.

Ruby enjoyed playing jump rope, softball and climbing trees when she was a child. When Ruby arrived at the all-white school the crowds of people there to protest her the commotion made her think it was Mardis Gras. Mardis Gras is a loud celebration that takes place in New Orleans every year.

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, "racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using our children to spread it."

For dinner, they ate New Orleans or Southern food like red beans and rice. Sometimes, they had fried catfish or shrimp for dinner. Ruby's favorite desserts were banana pudding and sweet potato pie.

Ruby Bridges got married to Malcolm Hall and had four sons. In 1993, her brother was shot and killed in New Orleans. Ruby's family went to New Orleans to take care of his daughters. In 1999, she wrote a children's book, "Through My Eyes", telling her story and what she went through.

Bridges says she sees her 6-year-old self enduring a lonely and confusing year in the children's letters. After walking past mobs of protesters, Bridges attended classes alone — and did so for the full year. Some white families permanently withdrew their children from the school because Bridges was a student there.

Is Ruby Bridges black or white? ›

Ruby Bridges was the first Black child to attend William Frantz. In fact, she was the first Black child to attend any all-white school in the South. She was also the only Black child to attend William Frantz Elementary that year.

Woodson Book Award for writing about her experience. Despite unfavorable weather forecasts, schools remained steadfast in holding their event with thousands of students marching down the streets waving purple flags–Ruby's favorite color.

I recently had the joy of presenting an award from the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs to Ruby Bridges. As a six-year-old first grader in New Orleans in 1960, Ruby Bridges became the first Black student to attend an all-White elementary school in the South.