The Sixties: Early Stirrings - Ruby Bridges, First Black Pupil In New Orleans White School (2)

No history of the 1960s is complete without Rosa Parks.

Rosa Parks, then in her 40s and working as a seamstress in a department store in Montgomery, Alabama, was emboldened by her membership in the NAACP on December 1, 1955, when she sat in the front of the bus, refusing to relinquish her seat to a white man.

Parks was arrested, convicted of violating segregation laws and fined $10.

As a result of Parks' arrest, African Americans boycotted Montgomery buses for 13 months and mounted a successful challenge to the old Jim Crow law, which had enforced second-class status on African-Americans on the public bus system.

The next year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that buses be desegregated, which was a first of its kind, and the first step in the beginning of a long series of steps that would eventually end segregation, not only in the South, but also across the nation. 

There is a famous photo of Rosa Parks sitting in the front of a bus; this photo appeared in 1956 in the Montgomery Advertiser, after desegregation was federally ordered.

It was a big step in the civil rights movement, a step that was hard-won with great pride.

It was Parks' arrest that in part spurred then 26-year-old preacher Martin Luther King to action, giving birth to the civil rights movement.

In September 1960, Ruby Bridges, with echoes of Rosa Parks resounding, entered first grade as the first black pupil at the William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

New Orleans schools were segregated, in violation of the federal desegregation law.

In 1960, a federal judge ordered four black girls to attend white elementary schools in New Orleans.  Three of the girls went to one school; Ruby Bridges went to the Frantz school.

Ruby was six years old. Ruby's attendance was met with protests from angry white parents. 

Ruby's mother had cautioned Ruby to behave herself on the first day of school. Ruby's behavior was hardly the problem.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered U.S. Federal Marshals to accompany Ruby into the school building; every day she attended school with the Marshals leading; Ruby's entrance into school continued to be marked with angry protests from white parents.

White parents kept their children from attending the Frantz school.

Ruby was alone in the classroom, with only Ruby and her teacher, Miss Hurley, to attend to lessons.  Ruby was a diligent student.

One day, Ruby stopped in front of the angry crowd to speak. She prayed for the crowd. After that, she repeated the prayer before and after school:

"Please, God, try to forgive those people.
Because even if they say those bad things,
They don't know what they're doing.
So You could forgive them,
Just like You did those folks a long time ago
When they said terrible things about You."

Later that year, two white boys joined Ruby at the Frantz elementary school, bringing the number of students enrolled to three. Soon, other children joined those two boys.

Ruby's bravery inspired the 1966 Norman Rockwell painting, "The Problem We All Live With."

The next year, Ruby was in second grade, and the angry mob stopped coming to the school. Ruby graduated from the Frantz elementary school, and continued to junior high and high school.

She is married to a building contractor and has four sons, who all attended New Orleans Public Schools.

Ruby Bridges Hall has created the Ruby Bridges Educational Foundation, to increase parental involvement in schools.

For more information, write: The Ruby Bridges Educational Foundation, P.O. Box 870248, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70187.

http://www.africanaonline.com/ruby_bridges.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/national/25parks.html?ex=1146369600&en=1e71add8cf2bd56a&ei=5070

Books for children:

"Rosa Parks: My Story" by Rosa Parks, with Jim Haskins, Puffin Books, New York, 1999.

"The Story of Ruby Bridges" by Robert Coles, Illustrated by George Ford, Scholastic Books, New York.

The series, "The Sixties" is normally published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays. This is a special edition.

"The Sixties" continues tomorrow, Saturday, with "Vietcong Downs Five U.S. Helicopters" . The series then resumes civil rights issues, following Saturday's article.