In the year of 2013 children of all colors can go to school together, eat together, read and write together, but that wasn’t always the case. Until a young girl name Ruby
Bridges came along.
Ruby Bridges was born September 8, 1954. She lived in Tylertown, Mississippi on a farm with her parents and grandparents in which they shared crops. When Ruby was four years of age her parents moved her and themselves to New Orleans for a better life. Her father taking a job at a gas station and her mother working some night jobs to help suppose them and Ruby’s two little brothers and little sister.
Ruby soon started kindergarten at an all black segregated school that was several miles always from her home. At this school she was one of the many students that were picked to take a test, this test was purposely made to be hard for African American students. The test being hard for students were to make sure they all would fail. That way black student did not have to go to an all white school and New Orleans could be segregated for as long as possible. While her father didn’t really agree with testing
Rudy, her mother was on the board, thinking it could be a better education opportunities for Ruby. In 1960 Ruby and her mother found out that she and four other African American students had passed the test. On November 14, 1960 Ruby had started her new school.
She was now going too an all white school, but it wasn’t easy for her. This first day she was escorted by four men for her protection. Walking into the school people were throwing things and yelling at her. As a young girl she thought that it was a Mardi gras celebration. Until her mother set her down and explained it to her. Even though she
would hear the entire bad thing that was said and see the bad things that people wanted to do to her, she kept her head up with her mother’s word. For a while she wasn’t learning at this new school, but she set in the principal’s office due to no one wanting to teach her, and from parents not wanting her to be around there children. This changed when a teacher name Barbara Henry also known as “Mrs. Henry” came to teach her.
Henry and Rudy set in a class by themselves while she taught her. Things started to get hard for Ruby. She started to have nightmares and even stop eating at school. She soon starts seeing a child psychologist once a week. This lead to series and a children’s book on Ruby’s experience. Her family was affected too. Her father lost his job and her grandparents were kicked off the farmed they had shared with other for more the 20 years. They were not accepted into current stores and places.
After the year started passing on everything was turning around. People were starting to enroll their children back into school. By second grade she had a new teacher and was in class
