After Making History As A Child, Ruby Bridges Shares Her Story With Today's Kids : Consider This from NPR (2024)

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What did Ruby Bridges experience as a child? ›

Ruby Bridges Shares Experience Desegregating School In New Children's Book : Consider This from NPR Ruby Bridges was just six years old in 1960 when she became the first Black child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans.

Ruby Bridges helped reform education to where it is now. No more white schools or African-American schools, just one school of all the future generations together as one. Later in life Ruby Bridges created a foundation called the Ruby Bridges Foundation.

Today, Ruby continues to be a civil rights activist. She established The Ruby Bridges Foundation to help promote tolerance and create change through education. Ruby Bridges is associated with the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in New Orleans, Louisiana.

At the tender age of six, Ruby Bridges advanced the cause of civil rights in November 1960 when she became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South.

Ten years after Bridges and three other girls became the first black children to attend New Orleans public school, more than 70 percent of the students in the public school system were black.

Learning that you can never judge anyone from the outside was the first lesson of that tumultuous year. A second was that we must all “become brothers and sisters.” “We must absolutely take care of one another. It does take a village, but we have to be a village first.

After graduating from a desegregated high school, she worked as a travel agent for 15 years and later became a full-time parent. 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".

When she was four years old, her family moved to New Orleans. Two years later a test was given to the city's African American schoolchildren to determine which students could enter all-white schools. Bridges passed the test and was selected for enrollment at the city's William Frantz Elementary School.

And Ruby was sent to William Frantz Elementary School. On the first day in her new school, Ruby and her mother arrived with four U.S. marshals for protection. Ruby saw a massive crowd of people shouting, throwing things, and carrying signs as she approached the school. Ruby thought it was Mardi Gras.

She showed unforgettable loving forgiveness and courage when faced with the ugly screaming White mobs who jeered and taunted her every day as she walked into William Frantz Elementary School. Federal marshals had to escort Ruby to school, but she never quit or turned back.

What are 3 important things Ruby Bridges did? ›

In November 1960, Bridges became the first Black student to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana — which is recognized as a pivotal moment in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. Bridges went on to become an author, speaker, and life-long civil rights activist.

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.

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.

The museum provides virtual museum tours and programs. Learn more about Ruby Bridges and her work by visiting the Ruby Bridges Foundation. Wear purple! It's Ruby's favorite color.

The white parents all withdrew their children from the school, and the staff refused to teach Bridges, except for one teacher: Barbara Henry, who had come from Boston. For the first year, Henry taught Bridges alone, just the two of them in the classroom.

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.

Ruby Bridges had several siblings. One of them, Malcolm, was killed in 1993 in a drug-related incident. He was Ruby's youngest brother and she took care of his children for a time after the killing.

Some parents refused to let their children go to the integrated school. The children who did attend were separated from her classroom. But Ruby made friends.