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Paul Slade/Getty

Paul Slade/Getty

Now 60 years old, American activist Ruby Bridges still remembers when she was just age 6, and the NAACP requested for her parents to allow her to participate in the integration of the New Orleans School system.  She was one of six Black children chosen in New Orleans for the task and Ruby’s father was hesitant for her safety.

Bridges remembers, “Driving up I could see the crowd, but living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras. There was a large crowd of people outside of the school. They were throwing things and shouting, and that sort of goes on in New Orleans at Mardi Gras.”

Paul Slade/Getty

Paul Slade/Getty

Excerpt from amightygirl.com:

As a six-year-old, Ruby Bridges famously became the first African American child to desegregate an all-white elementary school in the South. When the 1st grader walked to William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans on November 14, 1960 surrounded by a team of U.S. Marshals, she was met by a vicious mob shouting and throwing objects at her.

One of the federal marshals, Charles Burks, who served on her escort team, recalls Bridges’ courage in the face of such hatred: “For a little girl six years old going into a strange school with four strange deputy marshals, a place she had never been before, she showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She didn’t whimper. She just marched along like a little soldier. We were all very proud of her.”

Once Ruby entered the school, she discovered that it was devoid of children because they had all been removed by their parents due to her presence. The only teacher willing to have Ruby as a student was Barbara Henry, who had recently moved from Boston. Ruby was taught by herself for her first year at the school due to the white parents’ refusal to have their children share a classroom with a black child.

Despite daily harassment, which required the federal marshals to continue escorting her to school for months; threats towards her family; and her father’s job loss due to his family’s role in school integration, Ruby persisted in attending school. The following year, when she returned for second grade, the mobs were gone and more African American students joined her at the school. The pioneering school integration effort was a success due to Ruby Bridges’ inspiring courage, perseverance, and resilience.

Rene Johnston/Getty

Rene Johnston/Getty

Today, Ruby (now Ruby Bridges Hall) still lives in New Orleans with her four sons and husband, Malcolm Hall. In 1999, she began the Ruby Bridges Foundation dedicated to promoting “the values of tolerance, respect, and appreciation of all differences.”

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