This Nov. 14 marks 65 years since Ruby Bridges made history by becoming the first Black child to integrate an all-White elementary school in the South. She was just 6 years old when she stepped foot inside William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans while being escorted by federal marshals to protect her from a white mob. Here’s a look back on a pivotal moment in American history.
Ruby Bridges is the first Black child to integrate an all-White school in the South
Bridges was born on Sept. 8, 1954, which was the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Brown v. Board of Education and made segregation in public schools unconstitutional, according to the National Women’s History Museum.
Two years after her birth, Bridges’s parents moved to New Orleans from Tylertown, MS, in pursuit of better opportunities. Bridges’s parents left school at a young age to help their parents who were sharecroppers.
“I wanted it better for my kids than it was for us,” her mother Lucille told The New York Times in 2016.
Despite the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, segregation was still present in Louisiana years after. Federal Judge James Skelly Wright enforced the ruling in 1960 by ordering schools to integrate Black students or close down. In order to attend what had so far been an all-White school, Black children had to pass an exam of their own creation, according to People.
Bridges was one of five children to pass and was the lone Black child to be assigned to attend William Frantz Elementary School.
“I’ve been told that it was set up so that kids would have a hard time passing,” she wrote in her 1999 book Through My Eyes, according to The Washington Post. “If all the Black children had failed, the White school board might have had a way to keep the schools segregated for a while longer.”
When she attended her first day, Bridges and her mother were met with a mob hurling racial slurs, throwing food and making death threats toward them. At just 6 years old, she did not understand what was happening. Bridges initially thought the mob was a crowd celebrating Mardi Gras.
“For me, being 6 years old, I really wasn’t aware of what was going on,” she told NPR in 2010. “I mean the only thing that I was ever told by my parents that I was going to attend a new school and that I should behave.”
“In my tiny mind I thought this was just something that happened on my street and in my community,” she told People. “I didn’t realize that it was a part of a much broader movement.”
“What protected me was the innocence of a child,” Bridges added in 2024 in an interview with Meet the Press.
Bridges’s first day was chronicled by various artists, including Norman Rockwell’s 1964 painting titled “The Problem We All Live With.” John Steinbeck also detailed the event in his 1962 book Travels with Charley.
What happened after Ruby Bridges’s first day at an all-White school?
Bridges had to be escorted by federal marshals every day to protect her from the mob. She remembers one protestor having displayed a baby’s coffin containing a Black doll, while another was threatening to poison her.
“I used to have nightmares about the box,” Bridges told NPR about seeing the coffin. “Those are the days that I distinctly remember being really, really frightened.”
She had to eat food prepared at home out of fear of being poisoned. White parents refused to have their children attend classes with Bridges and so she was the only student to be taught by teacher Barbara Henry for the entirety of her first year.
“It was just the two of us for the entire year,” Ruby wrote in a 2010 essay for The Washington Post. “She never missed a day, and neither did I.”
When she entered the second grade, the mob had dissipated and her white peers had returned to the classroom. New Black students enrolled at the school every year.
“Every fall, more Black students joined me,” Bridges wrote. “By the time I left, I seem to recall that William Frantz was about evenly integrated. After the first year, no one really discussed it.”
She attended the school until the sixth grade and eventually went to another integrated high school in New Orleans. Bridges later became a travel agent for American Express, got married and had four sons.
Ruby Bridges continues to advocate against racism
In 1999, she started the Ruby Bridges Foundation promoting tolerance through education. Bridges has also written several books, including her memoir Through Her Eyes, the 2009 book Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story in 2009, This Is Your Time in 2020, as well as I Am Ruby Bridges: How One Six-Year-Old Girl’s March to School Changed the World in 2022.
“We all know that babies come into the world with a very unique gift, and that is a clear heart,” Bridges said, according to People. “Racism is a grown-up disease. Let’s stop using our kids to spread it.”
In 2014, William Frantz Elementary School put up a statue in her honor in its courtyard.
“I think kids will look at it and think to themselves, ‘I can do something great too,’” Bridges told People at the time. “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.”