Ruby Bridges: The 6-Year-Old Who Changed History

Jenn: 00:00:42

She's 6 years old and even though people are chanting things, she doesn't quite understand the words and it rhymes and she's from New Orleans so she thinks it's a Mardi Gras parade.

Scott: 00:00:52

So they actually have a little bit of video of her walking in and she's just trotting right along.

Jenn: 00:00:57

It makes you feel like if this six year old girl could be so brave, I can be brave. President Obama said to her, because you did that, I am standing here today.

Scott: 00:01:13

Welcome. Welcome to Talk with History. I'm your host Scott, here with my wife and historian Jen.

Jenn: 00:01:17

Hello.

Scott: 00:01:18

On this podcast we give you insights to our history Inspired World Travels YouTube channel Journey and examine history through deeper conversations with the curious, the explorers and the history lovers out there.

Now, Jen, before we get into our main topic, I want to shout out Pamela because Pamela, she left us a tip over at her website, talkwithistory.com if you go to talkwithhistory.com you can scroll to the bottom and you're actually able to there's a link that says support and you can drop us a tip. It's two bucks, five bucks, whatever it is, but you can also leave us a comment on there and it will post on the website.

ode. Lived in Richmond in the: 1990

Many happy memories in Williamsburg. Five stars. So thank you so much Pamela. That's actually one of our more popular podcast episodes because I think it's very searchable.

So if you want to tip the podcast because you brought some value to your history adventures, you can head over to talkwithhistory.com support. Buy us a coffee, buy us a sandwich or whatever it is. Thank you so much for the support, for the feedback.

Jenn: 00:02:24

Yeah, we really appreciate it. Thank you pamela.

Scott: 00:02:26

Thanks.

In: 1960

Something we take for granted today. Can you imagine being six years old walking into school surrounded by protesters, yet showing up day after day?

Ruby did exactly that at William France Elementary School, spending her entire first grade year as the only student in her class taught by a dedicated teacher named Barbara Henry.

While parents pulled their white children from the school in protest, Ruby's story became A powerful symbol of the civil Rights movement, inspiring Norman Rockwell's famous painting, the Problem We All Live with, and showing the world that even a small child could stand tall in the face of racial injustice. All right, Jen. So we were down in New Orleans, down in New Orleans, and we did a bunch of stuff down there. We did the history of New Orleans.

If you guys have been listening to the podcast regularly, if you're new to the podcast, go back. If you like the New Orleans area, did the history of New Orleans. We did the World War II. We made a video that's published.

That podcast is coming up soon on the World War II Museum down there. We did a couple things.

One of the things that I wasn't expecting to do while we were down there, but we went and did it because you said so, was we went to William France Elementary School. It's kind of out. I'll call it in the suburbs. I don't know. I don't remember how far away it was from.

Was it really suburbs of New Orleans or is it more like really, like a solid 20, 30 minutes?

Jenn: 00:04:21

No, it's a suburb. I would say it's called the Ninth Ward. So it's a suburb of New Orleans. You're still a little bit along the river there.

If you know anything about New Orleans. It kind of has the river runs through the Mississippi, runs through New Orleans, and it's kind of on the outskirts of that, to the east.

And I had wanted to do this because when you looked up historic events of New Orleans, it popped up. And we all are familiar with the photographs, I think, of Ruby Bridges desegregating the school, the little girl surrounded by the federal marshals.

But I never really knew where that was. Like, I under. You know, we all kind of know like. Like the Little Rock Nine, and that that happened in Little Rock, Arkansas.

But Ruby Bridges, you know the photograph, but you're not as sure where geographically that's taking place. And when we were in New Orleans and I realized it happened in New Orleans, I'm like, we have to tell this story well.

Scott: 00:05:15

And it was interesting, too, because this is a little bit more recent history. This is kind of. We've gone even more recent than this. But this was 19. And so Ruby Bridges is still around and kicking today.

Jenn: 00:05:28

Oh, yeah, she's still.

Scott: 00:05:29

I mean, she went. We'll talk about a little bit later. But she went to the White House to meet President Obama.

Jenn: 00:05:34

Yes, yes. And yeah, so she's still alive today. So I've had people comment on this video asking if any of those parents who are protesting are still alive.

And I'm like, I'm not sure about the parents, but their children definitely are probably still alive. And so it is recent history. And people have that conversation like, how would you feel seeing your grandma on either side of that riot?

And it's just one of those things we can all learn from.

And history is still so present in our lives, whether or not how far removed the time is, how we learn our history, if we can relate to our history, if we can see people that we know in these historic events or research them. This is one of those cases where you might have some connection to this, and if you do, please let us know. But it all stems from this Brown.

th,: 1952

And December 9th is my birthday. But it's decided May 17th.

Scott: 00:06:42

Oh, wow.

Jenn: 00:06:43

1954, which is Scott's birthday. So 54 is when it's decided that separate but equal is not separate but equal. That this was a Kansas City case of this family who.

They were African American and their child lived closer to the white school and couldn't go there and had to be bused farther away to the segregated school. And they were like, this makes no sense for our small child to have to. Has double the time to go to another school. And the.

And if it's separate but equal, it's not equal. The education wasn't equal. And so they brought it all the way to the Supreme Court.

son decision that happened in: 1896

When Plessy was a free man of color, tried to buy a. A train ticket in a white car on a New Orleans train car. And. And he. And it wasn't upheld. He wasn't allowed to do that. And that.

Supreme Court. And So I. This: 1954

Everybody equals not constitutional. So what do all these schools do? They hold off, right? They don't desegregate right away. They try to dig in. They try to find different rules.

They try to find different things that they can do to Kind of circumvent this. And that's what's happening in New Orleans. That's why it takes six years.

Scott: 00:08:31

And I always, like, I think in one of our past videos, we had done something around the civil rights era at this time. I think it was some of the Emmett Till series of the Emmett Tills. And remember when we did that?

I always like to kind of step back and look at what are some of the. What's the other kind of just larger societal context that's going on at this time. And I remember one of the things that we stuck out in my mind.

I think it was: 1950

This is the time when they're finally saying segregation is unconstitutional, it's wrong, it's against the law, at the same time that Disneyland opened. And think about the larger context of like, how just different these two things are. And that.

That, to me, that always kind of puts things in perspective of like, oh my gosh, I can't believe we were still like this as a.

As a society at the same time as like Disneyland and other, you know, you know, America just moving forward so quickly not too long after World War II.

Jenn: 00:09:37

Well, it kind of goes inside, Scott, with like, how different communities try to bubble their.

Scott: 00:09:45

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:09:46

How they work. Right. And California, like I always say, most people in the north weren't really looking at what the south was doing until the Emmett Till lynching.

They kind. And. And the court case after, when people were like, what is happening in the South? Because that happens after Brown ver. Is the 55.

And the south tries to kind of contain itself and rule itself. Tries to use that. The 10th Amendment, state rights. Right. It tries to rule itself. But federally, when you put a federal law, it.

mvents that Amendment. And so: 1954

And the south still tries to really dig in their heels, so much so that the US Circuit judge has to order desegregation of New Orleans to begin. Like, because it's taken so long. And they gave them six years. And he orders it to begin now.

in like the beginning of that: 1960

,: 1960

The segregates wanted was children to be already in school and not wanting to want to transfer schools by November 14th. So they agreed to that date because they thought oh. By that time, kids will already be settled in their schools and they're not going to want to.

Scott: 00:11:21

They were kind of trying to play that. That social game a little bit.

Jenn: 00:11:25

Yes, but. And they also, like, did this testing to. To. You had to test into these.

Scott: 00:11:33

Yeah, I thought that was interesting. I wasn't aware that. So the. You mentioned there was, like, four young African, you know, young black girls.

And Ruby Bridge is obviously one of them, but they took a test to kind of essentially, like, go to this school.

Jenn: 00:11:47

Yeah, Actually there were six of them.

Scott: 00:11:48

Okay.

Jenn: 00:11:49

And four of them went to another school. And Ruby Bridges. And another girl was supposed to go to William France. And the other girl, her parents kind of backed out because of the fear, Right.

Scott: 00:12:00

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:12:00

And so it really was the five of them who desegregated. But they had to test high. They had to take these. These placement tests and test high, and these girls all did it.

And so it's very interesting that they were. It reminds me of the Tuskegee Airmen. Yeah, right. When they tried to make it so difficult to be accepted. And then you get the best of the best.

Scott: 00:12:20

Yeah. What they did was they actually filtered out and got these. The sm.

Hardest, most driven, most just talented people to come, which was counter to what they thought they were doing.

Jenn: 00:12:32

Yes, exactly. So you get people who are going to be successful, and so. And so that's what happens here. So it's November 14th.

They had hoped that kids did not want to do this, but no, there were parents who were very on board with doing this. And of course, Ruby Bridges, we get her parents who were involved with the naacp. Her father's a little bit more standoffish.

He's worried about the repercussions. He's worried about the safety of his daughter. He's worried about all this spotlight, which is all understandable. And.

But her mother feels like this is what's going to move African American children forward. This is going to move education forward. Ruby is a great example of this.

Her mother was really on board with it, and her mother is actually with her every day. Her mother walks her into school. Her mother, in that very first day of school, she doesn't even get in the classroom.

Her mother sits with her all day. So her mother is part of this, standing with her and being beside her, which I really feel is powerful, too, to have that protection of a parent.

Scott: 00:13:27

And you know what I thought was neat, too. So the teacher that I mentioned in the beginning, and I know you're probably about to talk to her about.

To talk about her, she was actually from the Boston area.

And so you kind of was serendipitous a little bit, because I'm sure coming from a different part of the country further up north, where segregation is not really as prevalent up there. Right. She had moved to the south, and so naturally she was probably just like, sure, I'll do this.

Like, she had probably grown up in a different environment than those who grew up in the South. So I thought that was just an interesting fact. Some kind of just powers that be. You know, everything's lining up.

Jenn: 00:14:09

Yeah. Barbara Henry was her name. And she. Bridges, always thinks of her favorably. She taught her as if she was teaching the whole class.

And she never let her focus on what was happening outside. She just made her, like, focus on the class. And then she would eat her lunch with her. She would play with her in the playground.

So she really took it upon herself to like, immerse her as much as she can in a regular school because nobody ever came into that grade with her and was with her during that school year. Now, let's talk a little bit about the school, because that's where we went. If you want to visit William France Elementary School.

Scott: 00:14:50

Yeah. They've actually maintained the front of it. It looks almost exactly like it does in the photos. There's some news and video footage.

It was pretty neat.

Jenn: 00:14:58

Yeah. It was built in: 1937

high school now. But it's at: 3811

h desegregated in November of: 1960

Scott: 00:15:22

And I'll. I'll put a link to the location. So I always try to put Google Maps links to all these locations.

So if you've been listening and you want to go back and use these on as a reference if you're traveling to one of these spots, I always try to put Google Maps links to these spots that we visit.

Jenn: 00:15:34

Yeah. And it was the first all white elementary school in the deep south to be integrated. Wow, that's amazing. So it's there for you.

What's neat about going there is it looks the same as the photographs. And you can walk the steps. And there's a historic marker there.

mous photographs. And then in: 2014

So it's really a amazing place to visit because it's so much a part of these ingrained photographs of American history. And to be there, to sit on those steps, to stand there, I really felt honored to do that and to tell the story, leave the flag there.

But what's happening for Ruby Bridges that day is she doesn't realize the, the big repercussion of, of what's happening. She doesn't understand this, the riots that are going on.

Scott: 00:16:41

Six years old.

Jenn: 00:16:42

She's six years old and even though people are chanting things, she doesn't quite understand the words and it rhymes. And she's from New Orleans, so she thinks it's a Mardi Gras parade. Like she's not afraid.

And she looks so brave because in her mind she doesn't have any reason to be afraid. She's so used to people in New Orleans gathering and chanting and acting crazy for Mardi Gras and she's like, okay, this is just a Mardi Gras thing.

So she really doesn't put too. She doesn't know that she's the focus. She doesn't understand.

So she, the marshals will always say she was so brave and soldiered on and was just so confident in her walk. And I think it's because she doesn't realize everything that's going on around to, to her safety as well. And I think it's so.

Those pictures are so powerful because she doesn't look afraid. Six year old little girl doesn't look afraid. Standing beside these men with the US Marshall bands on their arms in full suits.

You know, they're armed and they're protecting her. And you don't really get to see what's happening in front of her. The, the huge protests of people. And she looks unfazed.

Scott: 00:17:56

And I love that because it's so different than some of the other kind of desegregation education, desegregation photos that you might be familiar with in our history books because you'll see ones from, I can't remember whether colleges or high schools that you'll see, but a lot of times these ones, they stick out in my head.

You'll see black man or woman walking into the, you know, to the building for the first time, but they kind of like have their head down a little bit. You know, you, you can tell there's some tension. You can just kind of see it, right? It's natural human biology.

Jenn: 00:18:28

Yeah.

Scott: 00:18:29

ips, you know that from, from: 1960

And they, so they actually have a little bit of video of her walking in and she's just trotting right along. She walks right up and the marshals open up the door and you know, all good.

Jenn: 00:18:48

I, I love that because it like, it makes you feel brave. Yeah, it makes you feel like if this six year old girl can be so brave, I can be brave.

And yes, you do see photographs of the sit ins and you do see photographs of Birmingham with the dogs and the water and the fire hoses. And you do see the Little Rock Nine. There's very famous pictures of Little Rock nine.

One of the girls who didn't know that they were turned away that day and she's walking by herself and then she has to walk by herself to the bus stop and you see that very famous picture of the white woman kind of yelling at her. That's from the Little Rock Nine.

And it's one of the girls who is on her own walking to the bus stop and she sits at the bus stop by herself because she didn't realize that they weren't going in that day. And there's a lot of story about that. And we eventually will do a story about the Little Rock Nine.

Scott: 00:19:42

And there was people when I looked up photos from when Ruby Bridges went in for the first day and there was obvious, obviously like the, the protesters kind of died down and we'll talk more about that. But that the first day, first couple days there's people holding up signs that says remember Little Rock?

Jenn: 00:19:58

Yes. So that happened just a little bit before then. And again Eisenhower had to send in National Guard for that.

So they're hoping to circumvent that with U.S. marshals in this regard. The white parents take their children out of the school on November 14th because they know it's going to be such a fanfare.

Who knows, maybe they are protesting, they don't want their child to go to school with African Americans. Maybe they just don't want the safety issue.

But the very next day after that first day where Ruby Bridges goes to school, a white student broke the boycott and this was a 5 year old girl who was walked in with her 34 year old white minister, father Lloyd Anderson foreman. And they also got to hear all the protest and the yelling and people calling them names and stuff. But the next day one family took a stand.

Simply want the privilege of Taking my child to school.

Scott: 00:21:01

34 year old.

Jenn: 00:21:02

And he said, I simply want the privilege of taking my child to school. So he broke the line. And then after he did it, other white parents started to do it.

And when other white parents started to do it, the protests began to subside.

Scott: 00:21:14

And that's one of the things that I actually appreciated about learning about this more because I learned by making these videos. Right. I'm not like you, where I'm just kind of looking this stuff up on my own. Again, we always joke. I'm not the history nerd. You are. Right.

But it was. I thought it was so neat and it kind of made sense to me. Right. And to me as a.

As a Christian man, I kind of appreciated that, you know, a pastor minister was taking his daughter to school.

But then you knew there were parents that just needed someone to kind of break that seal, for lack of a better way to put it, because they probably didn't. They probably agreed with desegregation. But finally they had someone, you know, someone else who was white who did it first.

And then they actually have pictures and video of parents bringing them in.

Jenn: 00:21:58

And I like that. It was a pastor too, who did it. You have to remember you're in New Orleans, very Catholic.

Scott: 00:22:04

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:22:05

Influence here. He's a Methodist minister, so I like that. He's also, again, kind of in the system. You're going to have a child psychologist.

I talk about this in the video. Robert Coles, he was of Air Force. He was there for the Air Force, his Air Force base there in New Orleans.

And he volunteers his service to counsel Ruby every day during that first year. So when she came home from school, kind of talked to her about how she was feeling and how she's doing.

And, you know, what's it, how's it feel being alone in the class? How do you feel about what you're doing? How do you know?

And just kind of making her not bottle in any kind of things that she's going through and emotions. He met with her weekly and what's interesting is the clothing that she's wearing.

And I really emphasize this because I want you to remember, William, Fran's school is not an upper scale white school. It's still a white school. And the clothing that she's wearing, her parents said they could not have been able to afford it. But the.

There's a family, a friend of the Kohl's family, who anonymously sends these clothes to Ruby Bridges for her to wear to school. And there are clothes that you would see on an upper scale, upper class family daughter.

And so I think it makes her represent that the only thing that's different about her is her skin color. That she looks like any other middle class little six year old girl would have looked.

She's wearing the dress, she has the bow in her hair, she has the white socks with her Mary Janes and the little sweater and her book bag. So I feel like that also made her feel more confident because she looks, you know, like she looks like nice and well taken care of.

And I think that like also I think emulates when you look at the photograph that she looks like any other child would look except for the color of her skin. And so that's what makes it different. And that's what makes us contemplate and you know, have interest in what she's doing in American history.

painting that he does in, in: 1964

And you see a racial slur written on the wall behind her. But she looks just like the Marshall. She's very standing straight up, chin up, walking.

And you had said that Ruby Bridges got to meet President Obama because this painting was taken to the White House.

Scott: 00:24:56

Yeah, that was cool.

Jenn: 00:24:57

And it was put in the White House for some time. And President Obama and Ruby Bridges got to look at it together. And President Obama said to her, because you did that, I am standing here today.

And I love that how that connection of American history is what we're always trying to talk about and show and do. And he's exactly right.

And I think a lot of people don't get credit for that in their lifetime of doing something that really changes and moves American history forward. But she got to have that moment.

Scott: 00:25:29

Yeah, it was really neat because again, a lot of this stuff that I didn't know and a little bit behind the scenes, it took you like two or three takes to say that on video. Because you were like tearing up hardcore the first time you said it.

Jenn: 00:25:44

I did. Because it's so powerful.

Scott: 00:25:45

Yeah, well. And you're so passionate about it and I appreciate the things that you bring up.

Because that's our goal on Talk with History is like, why does this matter? We read it in a book and we might remember it from high school, but then we watch a video, we listen to A podcast.

ow that ties to us today from: 1960

Jenn: 00:26:15

Yeah. I mean, I think Norman Rockwell is really considered the great American painter. Right. His, his paintings were on the Saturday Evening Post.

I mean, there's so many famous Norman Rockwell paintings.

And for him to choose this subject matter and paint just says a lot about what it meant in American history because that's, that's kind of what he did. He captured moments of. We also talk about in the video, the Bridges family is going to suffer some consequences for this.

And unfortunately, you know, her father's going to lose his job at the gas station and the grocery store, the family shop that would no longer let them shop there. Their parent, their grandparents were sharecroppers in Mississippi, are turned off their land.

Now the father, then there's people who are going to rally around them. There is their father. Someone's going to find their father a job.

There's going to be people who offer to babysit and take care of their family for free. So while their mom goes with her to class all day, they'll stay with the other children at the house.

There's other people who offer protection, guarding their house for them. And if you think about the civil unrest during the civil rights movement, that was very important.

Unfortunately, her parents do separate because of this and we talk about that because again, I think they both wanted to do something important during desegregation. I think the mother was more on board with, with, with going through with this kind of action.

I think her father was more apprehensive that didn't want Ruby Bridges to get hurt.

Scott: 00:27:54

Yeah. And I can't even imagine the kind of stress that puts not just on the family and the situation, but just life. Right.

If everything that's happening, the whole world is looking at you, you're just seeing vitriol and hate and protest everywhere. Then you're losing your job and all this other stuff. And it had to be tough.

Jenn: 00:28:13

Yeah. So you have to know, like Ruby Bridges is a symbol. And I do love that the photographs show her as a symbol.

But don't think there is not two parents behind that.

And we know as parents too, like a six year old child, it's like your parents are behind there, like wringing their hands, like I'm putting my daughter out there.

Scott: 00:28:35

Well, and realistically, I mean, the parents were probably braver than Ruby because Ruby admits, like she just thought it was a Mardi Gras celebration.

Jenn: 00:28:42

Yeah.

Scott: 00:28:42

You know, and so I can't imagine that as a parent of being like, okay, we're gonna do this. This is important enough for me to put my child out there with federal marshals walking through, you know, protests like that. Like that.

That was bravery on the parents part. That it's tough to imagine.

Jenn: 00:29:02

Yeah. And I don't think I know they get credit, but I really want to emphasize them as well. And their names were Avon and Lucille Bridges.

I just want to give them their credit in what they did. Moving American history forward. But if you ever want to make it out there, it really is a neat place to visit.

We really had no problems getting there and filming there. It seems like it's there for you. There's no special access. I know that if you ever can get into the school, they have preserved that classroom.

Scott: 00:29:35

Oh yeah.

Jenn: 00:29:36

And so. But it is still a used school. But I guess that sometimes they will do tours and things like that.

So the classroom that she was in for that first year is preserved the way it looked then.

Scott: 00:29:47

That's cool.

Jenn: 00:29:48

So that would be neat to see that as well. We were unable to do that. But it's there for you. And this is your history. This is our history.

So if you ever get a chance to make it out to New Orleans, please go and visit William France Elementary School.

Scott: 00:30:08

Today we explore the remarkable story of Ruby Bridges, a six year old girl whose courage helped break down the walls of segregation in American education. Her daily walks to school escorted through crowds of angry protests, demonstrated extraordinary bravery that most adults would find challenging.

And her parents too. While Ruby's personal battle to attend William France elementary school happened over 60 years ago, her story remains deeply relevant today.

It reminds us that positive change often requires immense courage and that even the youngest among us can make a profound difference. Ruby's legacy lives on through the countless students who now learn and grow together in classrooms across America.

Her story teaches us that education is a fundamental right worth fighting for and that the power of one person's determination can help transform a nation. Ruby Bridges truly left her own mark on American history. This has been a Walk with History production.

Talk with Talk with History is created and hosted by me, Scott Benny. Episode researched by Jennifer Benny. Check out the show notes for links and references mentioned in this episode.

Talk with History is supported by our fans@thehistoryroadtrip.com our eternal thanks go out to those providing funding to help keep us going. Thank you to Judgment, Liberty, Larry Myers, Patrick Benny and Gail.