A Class of Her Own
by Ana Figueroa
Ruby Bridges is a living legacy of Brown v. Board of Education. As the first black child in America to integrate an all-white school, Bridges speaks with passion today about her role in the landmark Supreme Court decision 50 years ago, and how it shaped her life.
As head of the nonprofit Ruby Bridges Foundation in New Orleans, which she founded five years ago, she has focused much of her attention on the very school that once served as a backdrop for her traumatic childhood. The one-time "whites only" William Frantz Elementary is all black now, its surroundings even more poor and neglected than before. Bridges is leading efforts to have the school designated as an historical site, which she believes will bring much-needed funds and a diverse student body to William Frantz. "I'm hoping to integrate that school a second time around," she says.
The project is an outgrowth of one of her foundation's programs called Ruby's Bridges, which brings together school children from different areas and economic brackets who would otherwise not have the chance to mingle. Children get together and visit at each other's schools. They meet Bridges, read about her experience, and go on field trips. Now in its second year in Los Angeles, Ruby's Bridges has expanded to Chicago. "With luck, and funding, we can move it nationwide," says Bridges.
Bridges is determined to show school children that some good came out of her experience growing up. "The lesson I learned at six is the lesson that Dr. King has passed down to us: You should never judge a person by the color of their skin," says Bridges. "And I learned that through Mrs. Henry. She looked exactly like those people I was seeing outside in the angry mob everyday. But she showed me her heart. I truly believe that she was put there for me, and helped shape me into who I am today. Because of her, I will never look at a person and try and judge them. That's the most important message that I pass on to the kids."
"Mrs. Henry" is Barbara Henry, the young white woman who was her teacher and only friend in first grade. The two crossed paths again in 1995, when Bridges was helping to promote The Story of Ruby Bridges (Scholastic, 1995), a book by child psychiatrist Dr. Robert Coles, who had interviewed Bridges as a child for his Pulitzer Prize-winning work, Children in Crisis: A Study in Courage and Fear (Little, Brown and Company, 1967). When the children's book was published, Bridges was working as a travel agent and raising four sons. She was also back at the William Frantz School, this time in the role of parent and volunteer. She had taken in her brother's four daughters after he died. Ruby agreed to promote Coles' book about her and asked the publisher, Scholastic, to help her find Mrs. Henry.
As it turns out, Mrs. Henry found her. One day, a little boy in Boston took the book to school. A school administrator read it and immediately got in touch with Scholastic. The administrator was Barbara Henry.
Soon after, teacher and student were reunited on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." They've kept in contact ever since, giving speeches together at teacher conferences. "I never realized until we were reunited how much we had in common. Back then, Mrs. Henry was ostracized by the other teachers. She and her husband weren't able to make friends, because everyone knew she was teaching the black child. It was very hard for them, but I didn't realize all this at the time," notes Bridges.
Indeed, it wasn't until the mid-90s that Bridges realized the significance of her own life story. That's when she saw, for the first time, the famous Norman Rockwell painting, "The Problem We All Live With." The painting, which appeared in Look Magazine in 1964, shows a little black girl in braids and a crisp, white frock, mid-stride. She is surrounded by four men in suits and behind them is a wall littered with racial epithets and debris, a scene inspired by Ruby's own first days in class. Those days were also preserved for posterity in Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, who witnessed the mob at William Frantz Elementary School on Ruby's second day of class. "It's as if everything was aligned for my story to go down in history," says Bridges, who told it all in 1999 in her book, Through My Eyes.
Little about Bridge's background prepared her for a role in history. The eldest of eight children born to Abon and Lucille Bridges, Ruby, like all black children in New Orleans, couldn't attend local all-white schools. Despite the Supreme Court's order that schools be desegregated "with all deliberate speed," districts in the South effectively delayed this ruling for years. In New Orleans, the school district fashioned an "entry test" that most black students failed. Ruby, one of a handful of students who passed the test, was admitted to the first grade at the local white school, William Frantz Elementary.
On her first day of class, November 14, 1960, Ruby saw people lined up along the sidewalk, throwing things and shouting. "I thought it was Mardi Gras," she recalls. Protected by federal marshals, Ruby spent that first year in class alone with Mrs. Henry. The few white families who kept their children in the school were intimidated and harassed. Many eventually gave up and moved away. The ordeal disrupted Ruby's family, her neighborhood, and her own life for years. Her father was fired from his job. Even her grandparents were forced to leave their farm in Mississippi.
At the end of the school year, Ruby finally realized why she was in a class with no other children. "A little boy said he couldn't play with me because I was a nigger," she says. "That was the moment when I realized it was all about me. Now I have to do my part to make sure the story doesn't die."
Ana Figueroa is a freelance writer in Los Angeles.
