Ruby Bridges Ruby Bridges Meets Mrs Henry Again
60 Years Later, Ruby-red Bridges Tells Her Story In 'This Is Your Time' 06:53
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Crimson Bridges is a real person who became an indelible image of American history.
She was that six year-old girl, painted by Norman Rockwell, who was escorted into schoolhouse by stout U.Due south. marshals, when she became the first Black student at the William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans on Nov xiv, 1960.
Rockwell depicted her in a light, white apparel, holding her schoolbooks and a ruler — and walking by a wall scrawled with a message of hate. sixty years later, she's written a book to tell children her story, and a story of America — Ruby Bridges: This is Your Time.
Bridges recalls that first day, and her teacher, Barbara Henry: "Barbara came from Boston to teach me because teachers actually quit their jobs because they didn't want to teach black kids. I remember the beginning day meeting her, she looked exactly like the mob outside the classroom. So I really didn't know what to expect from her," Bridges says.
"But I remember her graciously saying, you know, come in and take a seat — and in that location I was sitting in an empty classroom with her for the whole year, you know, she showed me her heart. Very early, and I realized that she cared nigh me, she made schoolhouse fun, and ultimately I felt safety in that classroom."
Interview Highlights
On being all alone
The commencement twenty-four hour period that I arrived with federal marshals, they rushed me inside of the building. And 500 kids walked out of school that first day and they never returned.
[Making friends] did not come up easy because I heard kids, at that place were days when I would become into this coat closet to hang up my glaze and I could hear kids laughing and talking, but I never saw them. Afterward on, I came to realize that they were being hidden from me in another classroom.
And that was because there were some white parents who actually crossed that sentinel line and brought their kids to schoolhouse. But the principal who was part of the opposition, she would hide them. And even though I was complaining — or at to the lowest degree mentioning it to Mrs. Henry, she would never say anything to me, simply she was really going to the principal and saying, if you don't allow those kids to come together, because the law has now changed, then I'm going to report you to the superintendent. And so I think after months of that, we were allowed to come up together.
On calling racism a "grownup disease"
None of our babies are built-in into the globe knowing anything almost disliking i another, or disliking someone because of the colour of their skin.
Ruby Bridges
That was the best fashion for me to attempt to explain information technology to young kids. None of our babies are born into the world knowing anything most disliking one another, or disliking someone because of the colour of their skin. Babies don't come into the world like that. Then if babies are non born that way, and so we as adults are the ones who are passing it on to them, and nosotros accept kept racism live.
On Vae, a little girl who made a powerful observation
I spent the terminal 25 years in schools talking to kids all beyond the land and there are days when, you lot know, personal issues proceed me from feeling similar getting upwards and going out. Merely almost every fourth dimension that happened, I would run across someone like Vae, who would help me to empathize why I'm doing what I do. Then that story about the One thousand&G'southward — I was doing a presentation in school and she raised her hand and said, yous know, nosotros're all like M&M's. We all look different on the exterior, just when you lot seize with teeth into them, we're all the same.
And I remember when she said that I looked at her, and even the teachers that were standing around, you know, you begin to tear up because, it's out of the mouths of babes, you know. She was absolutely right.
On losing a son to violence
Well, you know, that's a parent'southward worst nightmare. And it never goes away. Only when I lost my son, what was reiterated for me — because the person that took my son's life looked exactly like him — I had an opportunity to really think about my work, and what came to listen is that good and evil comes in all shades and colors.
And that evil is not prejudiced, that evil only needs an opportunity to work through you. Information technology made me realize that I had a lot more work to practice that all of us, no matter what we look like, we all accept a mutual enemy. And that is evil. If we don't understand that and come up together, then evil will win.
This story was edited for radio by Samantha Balaban and Ed McNulty, and adapted for the Web past Petra Mayer.
Copyright NPR 2022.9(MDAyNzUwMDI2MDEyNTA3MTU5NzcyNTQyNA004))
Source: https://www.wbur.org/npr/932091148/60-years-later-ruby-bridges-tells-her-story-in-this-is-your-time
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