Ruby Bridges

Ruby Bridges is a Civil Rights icon, activist, author and speaker who at the age of six was the first Black student to integrate  an all-white elementary school in Louisiana. She was born in Mississippi in 1954, the same year the  United States Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision ordering the integration of public  schools.  Her  family  later  moved  to  New  Orleans,  where  on  November  14,  1960,  Bridges  began  attending William Frantz Elementary School, single-handedly initiating the desegregation of public  education. Her walk to the front door of the school was immortalized in Norman Rockwell’s painting  The Problem We All Live With, in Robert Coles’ book The Story of Ruby Bridges, and in the Disney  movie Ruby Bridges. 

She established the Ruby Bridges Foundation to provide leadership training programs that inspire  youth  and  community  leaders  to  embrace  and  value  the  richness  of  diversity.  Bridges  is  the  recipient of numerous awards, including  the NAACP Martin Luther King Award,  the Presidential  Citizens Medal, and honorary doctorate degrees from Connecticut College, College of New Rochelle,  Columbia University Teachers College, and Tulane University.  Bridges is also the author of Through My Eyes, This Is Your Time, I Am Ruby Bridges, and Dear Ruby, Hear Our Hearts, releasing January, 2024.

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