Short Essay On Ruby Bridges

Ruby Bridges Biography

Ruby Bridges was the first African-American child to attend and integrate an all-white public school. She was born in Tylertown, Mississippi, on September 8th, 1954. Ruby Bridges’ mother was Lucille Bridges and her father was Abon Bridges. She also had four other siblings, three brothers and a sister. According to biography.com, Ruby Bridges had lived on a farm in Mississippi where her parents and grandparents sharecropped, but when Bridges was just four years old, Ruby and her parents had moved to New Orleans in sight for a better life. While in kindergarten, Bridges was chosen to take a test that decided whether or not Bridges was able to attend a white school. It turned out that Bridges was one of the six African-American

According to nwhm.com, Ruby Bridges’ father, Abon Bridges, was reluctant at first, of the idea of sending Ruby to the new school because he didn’t want to put the family in danger. But gradually, Ruby’s mother, Lucille Bridges, convinced Abon Bridges to allow Ruby to transfer to William Frantz Elementary School. Ruby Bridges had her first day of school at William Frantz Elementary School on November 14th, 1960. On her first day and for the rest of first grade, she had to have federal marshals drive and walk her to school to protect her against the violent and angry mobs. According to cbn.com, one of the federal marshals who escorted Bridges, Charles Burks, recalls Bridges as showing a lot of courage and that she never cried or whimpered. She just marched along like a little soldier. She simply thought the mobs were there because of Mardi Gras. She wasn’t very aware that she was apart of integrating the school systems.According to wikipedia, Bridges said, “the most horrifying image she remembered from one of the mobs was when one woman carried around a baby-sized coffin with a black babydoll inside.” This image still haunts Bridges to this

A couple of white children began attending William Frantz School again, the federal marshals were no longer needed to escort Bridges anymore, and most importantly, the mobs had died down. Sadly, Barbara Henry’s contract had expired and so she went back to Boston.This time, there were other children in Bridges class and William Frantz School began to see children enroll in their school again. It seemed that no one spoke about what happened during Bridges’ very first years at William Frantz School and that everyone wanted to move past the whole