The Enduring, Necessary Story of Ruby Bridges

Earlier this month an elementary school in St. Petersburg, Florida, stopped showing a 1998 Disney movie about Ruby Bridges, the 6-year-old Black girl who integrated a public elementary school in New Orleans because of a complaint lodged by a single parent who said she feared the film might teach children that white people hate Black people.

I have been fascinated by the story of the courage and faith of Ruby Bridges for many years, perhaps because I discovered that she had been born exactly one month before me in 1954. a month. How could a contemporary have gone through so much at the same time I was starting school? 

 Ruby was a bright kindergartner in a segregated school who was chosen along with several others to begin attending newly integrated schools in New Orleans in 1959. She was the only child to attend William Frantz Elementary school and on her first day she walked through a phalanx of irate white people. 

Bridges and her mother were escorted to school by four federal marshalls the first day that Bridges attended the school. In the following days of that year, federal marshals continued to escort Ruby while her mother looked after her younger siblings. Because of the objections of white parents Ruby was educated by herself for the first year. On the second day, however, a white student broke the boycott and entered the school when a 34-year-old Methodist minister, Lloyd Anderson Foreman, walked his five-year-old daughter Pam through the angry mob, saying, "I simply want the privilege of taking my child to school ..." 

In New Orleans, a child psychiatrist, Rober Coles witnessed this remarkable, dignified child "walking through a screaming mob to integrate a public school."He volunteered to support and counsel Ruby and her family during this difficult period.and eventually wrote about the experience. As he worked with Ruby he was fascinated by her prayers for those who persecuted her and was convinced that the faith of her family helped to keep her grounded.

Ruby described those first days: 

Mama assured me. “Remember, if you get afraid, say your prayers. You can pray to God anytime, anywhere. He will always hear you.” That was how I started praying on the way to school. The things people yelled at me didn’t seem to touch me. Prayer was my protection. After walking up the steps past the angry crowd, though, I was glad to see Mrs. Henry. She gave me a hug, and she sat right by my side instead of at the big teacher’s desk in the front of the room. Day after day, it was just Mrs. Henry and me, working on my lessons.

There is a concerted effort in a number of US States to suppress education about slavery, racism, and the Civil Rights Movement. Books have been removed from school shelves and teachers have been warned that they could be fired for telling the truth about America's history. In many high schools and colleges Critical Race Theory has been demonized, even though it's critics often don't really know what it is. The large Southern Baptist Convention has been split by the debate about CRT. It's all rather bleak. 

In recent years Ruby Bridges has startled audiences by saying that she feels racism has become worse in some areas than it was in the 1960's. Sadly, it appears that she is prophetic.