About Ruby Bridges

Ruby Bridges was the first Black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the US South when she was 6 years old.

For her to attend school her first day, federal marshals with guns had to make way through a crowd of grown men and women screaming “nigger”, spitting on her, threatening her life, and waving confederate flags. They even carried a small coffin with a Black baby doll inside, which caused Ruby nightmares at the time. ⁠

In her classroom, all her classmates were either withdrawn by angry parents or abandoned the class refusing to sit with the 6-year-old.⁠

Nearly all the teachers abandoned the school except for one. For the entire school year, Ruby went to school to a classroom that was just her and the one teacher that didn’t refuse her.⁠

She refused to eat any food that wasn’t pre-packaged and sealed because they threatened to poison her.⁠

Ruby is only 65 years old today. It wasn’t a long time ago that a lot of racist people were living among us; now many people consider racism a crime. However, we are facing a systematic racism and discrimination everyday and we should fight against it.

We should know that there’s a lot of people like Ruby who we should support to make changes. Our fight continues.