Ruby Bridges

Ruby Bridges First Day of School as portrayed by Norman Rockwell

                                                                  Ruby Bridges
       Despite the Supreme Court ruling to desegregate schools after the case of Brown v. the Board of Education, schools in the South still fought to remain segregated. After the ruling took place in 1954, most schools in the South resisted integration; schoolboards, parents of white children, and administrators fought to keep their schools segregated. Finally, in 1960, the federal court ordered Louisiana to desegregate its schools, causing an uproar and an upsurge of violence in the state. The schools created entrance exams and other barriers to try to prevent black children from going to white schools, and made the entrance exams very difficult to pass. Ruby Bridges was about to enter first grade at the time of the federal mandate to integrate schools in 1960. Instead of going to the school right down the road from her, she had to travel miles away to attend an all-black school. When the exams were introduced, her parents were wary of her taking it fearing it would start trouble; however, they relented, and  Ruby Bridges was one out of six black students in her school to pass the entrance exams (Boyd, 2013).
       Ruby Bridges was the first black child to integrate a white elementary school in the South, and on November 14, 1960, she was to have her first day of school at the elementary school down the road from her. At the age of six, she was the first black student at the all-white William Frantz Elementary School. On her first day, US marshals had to escort her to the school. The same kind of mob that met the Little Rock 9 outside of their high school was there to meet the 6 year old. The mob of white protestors screamed profanities, threw objects, and spit on her as she walked into the elementary school escorted by US marshals. The school was in such an uproar that instead of being escorted into her new classroom, Ruby Bridges was taken to the principal’s office where she remained all day the first day and the second. Parents refused to send their kids to the elementary school, and teachers refused to have Ruby in their classroom. Only one teacher, Barbra Henry from Boston, volunteered to have her as the sole student in her classroom. Ruby’s teacher and parents helped her through this grueling time; most of the school was empty because parents refused to send their kids there now that a black student was in the vicinity, and mobs were outside of the school protesting daily. The atmosphere of the school was so stressful that Ruby would have frequent nightmares and would not be able to eat lunch at school. Her teacher, Barbra Henry, after a month or two was able to convince Ruby to eat with her. After a year, white students slowly began to trickle back into the elementary school again, and eventually became used to Ruby Bridges presence. Ruby graduated from that elementary school and then attended an integrated high school in New Orleans (Boyd, 2013).

     Ruby Bridge’s experience shows us the strength of racism and the opposition of integration in the South. Her experience shows us that despite Supreme Court rulings, individual states can work around laws and create barriers to disadvantage certain groups; in this case, it would be black students integrating into white schools. The fact that mobs were formed outside of the elementary school to scare and intimidate a 6 year old child shows how great the opposition was by white Southern parents to integrate schools. How could a 6 year old create such a violent reaction from so many people? Ruby Bridges, the first black child to integrate a white elementary school in the South, changed America just by getting ready for school that day in 1960 (Boyd, 2013).

This picture depicts Ruby Bridges as she is escorted in by US Marshals to her new elementary school.

Boyd, Herb. "Ruby Bridges: The First Black Child to Intergrate a White School in
     the South." New York Amsterdam News, 10 Oct. 2013, pp. 32-33. Academic
     Complete.