On November 14, 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges became the first African American child to integrate the William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, facing a hostile segregationist mob. Despite being the only student in her class for the entire year, Ruby received support from her teacher and the African American community, while her family endured significant hardship for their brave decision. The events surrounding Ruby's integration highlight the ongoing struggles against racism and the legacy of integration in American schools.

1. RUBY NELL BRIDGES NOVEMBER 1960
by Murphy Browne
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
© Saturday, November 14, 2015
"On November 14, 1960, a tiny six-year-old black child, surrounded by federal
marshals, walked through a mob of screaming segregationists and into her school.
From where she sat in the office, Ruby Bridges could see parents marching
through the halls and taking their children out of classrooms. The next day,
Ruby walked through the angry mob once again and into a school where she saw no
other students. The white children did not go to school that day, and they
wouldn't go to school for many days to come. Surrounded by racial turmoil, Ruby,
the only student in a classroom with one wonderful teacher, learned to read and
add."
Description of the book “Through My Eyes: Ruby Bridges“ published 1999 by Ruby
Bridges
On Monday November 14, 1960 a 6 year old African American child integrated the
William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ruby Nell Bridges
had recently celebrated her sixth birthday on September 8, 1960 when she became
the public face of desegregation in New Orleans. On May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the Civil Rights
desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas which made
segregation of public schools a violation of the 14th amendment and therefore
unconstitutional. One year later on May 31, 1955, Warren read the Court's
unanimous decision instructing all states to begin desegregation plans "with all
deliberate speed." New Orleans“ schools finally began integration "with all
deliberate speed" 5 years after the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ruby Nell Bridges was born just four months after the US Supreme Court“s
decision to desegregate schools, on September 8, 1954 in Tylertown, Mississippi
to Lucille and Abon Bridges. At the time Ruby was born her parents and
grandparents were tenant farmers (sharecroppers) on land owned by White
families. When she was 4 years old, her parents moved with their children to New
Orleans. In the 1999 published book “Through My Eyes: Ruby Bridges“ Lucille
Bridges gave the reason for the move: “Sharecropping is hard work. On the day
before Ruby was born, I carried 90 pounds of cotton on my back. I wanted a
better life for Ruby.“ In New Orleans, Abon Bridges worked as a gas station
attendant while Lucille Bridges did several night jobs to help support their
growing family which then included two younger sons and a younger daughter. In
“Through My Eyes: Ruby Bridges“ Ruby Bridges remembered: “My mother sometimes
took night jobs, like cleaning rooms in one of the city“s hotels. I remember my
mother taking a job making caskets.“
On Monday, November 14 when 6 year old Ruby Bridges entered William Frantz
Elementary School it was after a summer of White politicians in New Orleans
trying every trick to resist integration of the public schools. In 1956 U.S.
District Court Judge J. Skelly Wright ordered the desegregation of the New
Orleans public schools. The New Orleans School Board launched a series of
appeals which failed. In 1960, Judge Wright outlined a plan that required the
integration of the schools on a grade-per-year basis, beginning with the first
grade. The School Board insisted that psychological and educational tests would
be administered to African American kindergartners to determine the best
candidates for integration. Ruby Bridges was one of six children selected after
passing the tests. The Bridges were the only African American family who took
the risk of sending their child into the William Frantz Elementary School.
On the morning of the first day of school, Ruby and her mother were escorted by
four federal marshals. Because of the furious mob Bridges did not get to class
on the first day of school, November 14, 1960. She and her mother spent the day

2. in the principal’s office where they witnessed furious White men and women
taking their children out of the school. Bridges wrote of her recollections from
that day and the following day: ’We spent that whole day sitting in the
principal's office. Through the window, I saw white parents pointing at us and
yelling, then rushing their children out of the school. In the uproar I never
got to my classroom. The marshals drove my mother and me to school again the
next day. I tried not to pay attention to the mob. Someone had a black doll in a
coffin, and that scared me more than the nasty things people screamed at us.’ On
the second day she did enter a classroom because one teacher agreed to teach her
even though no White parents would allow their children to sit in the classroom
with her. Bridges spent her entire grade one year protected by Federal Marshals,
she was the only child in the classroom and she was never allowed to leave the
class even for recess.
Meanwhile the White mob, mostly women, continued to riot outside the school,
swearing, throwing objects and threatening death to the 6 year old. It is almost
unbelievable that the women, many of them mothers of children the same age as
the then 6 year old Bridges, vowed to murder the child simply because she
entered the same school as their children. One woman promised to poison Bridges
which prompted the decision to not allow her to eat anything that was not
prepared at home. The family suffered repercussions because of their decision to
have their child integrate the all white school. Abon Bridges was fired from his
job and his parents who were tenant farmers in Mississippi were thrown off the
land by the White farmer/owner for whom they had laboured for 25 years.
The family received a great deal of support from the African American community
in their New Orleans neighbourhood. Speaking of the support the family received,
during an interview aired on PBS Bridges said: ’I don't think that my parents
could have gone through what they did without the whole community coming
together. We had friends that would come over and help dress me for school. Even
when I rode to school, there were people in the neighborhood that would walk
behind the car. I actually didn't live that far from school, and so they would
actually just come out and walk to school with me.’
Not surprisingly the six year old child began to suffer psychologically
including experiencing nightmares. She was supported by Dr. Robert Coles a White
American child psychiatrist. Celebrated White American author John Ernst
Steinbeck witnessed the horrific abuse to which the 6 year old was subjected. In
’Travels With Charlie’ he wrote: ’The show opened on time. Sound the sirens.
Motorcycle cops. Then two big black cars filled with big men in blond felt hats
pulled up in front of the school. The crowd seemed to hold its breath. Four big
marshals got out of each car and from somewhere in the automobiles they
extracted the littlest negro girl you ever saw, dressed in shining starchy
white, with new white shoes on feet so little they were almost round. Her face
and little legs were very black against the white.’ Steinbeck also described a
scene which would possibly give adults nightmares much less a six year old
child: ’The big marshals stood her on the curb and a jangle of jeering shrieks
went up from behind the barricades. The little girl did not look at the howling
crowd, but from the side the whites of her eyes showed like those of a
frightened fawn. The men turned her around like a doll and then the strange
procession moved up the broad walk toward the school, and the child was even
more a mite because the men were so big. Then the girl made a curious hop, and I
think I know what it was. I think in her whole life she had not gone ten steps
without skipping, but now in the middle of her first step, the weight bore her
down and her little round feet took measured, reluctant steps between the tall
guards. Slowly they climbed the steps and entered the school.’ Steinbeck’s
descriptive essay is said to have inspired the now famous 1964 Norman Rockwell
painting, "The Problem We All Live With."
In 2015 schools in the USA are open to students of all races and this is because
of the courage of African Americans who risked their lives and their children’s
lives. It was just 3 years before, in September 1957 that a group (Little Rock
Nine) of mostly 14 year olds risked their lives to integrate Central High School
in Little Rock, Arkansas. Today it is hardly likely that African Americans would

3. be threatened with lynching if they attend any school. However some of the
horrific scenes that are documented on video of police brutality of African
American students in and out of schools are reminiscent of the abuse African
American students suffered as they integrated all white schools following Brown
v. Board of Education. While there are no stories of White parents and students
rioting to prevent African American students entering schools the comments that
accompany the stories of police brutality are reminiscent of those riots. The
members of the mob now hide behind their computer screens and anonymously lynch
the characters of the African American students who are brutalized by police.
by Murphy Browne
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
© Saturday, November 14, 2015