November 14, 1960: New Orleans, Louisiana is hailed as one of the great American cities. Not for its black residents in 1960, it wasn't.
In 1960 New Orleans, Ruby Bridges was 6 years old. And she wanted to go to school. She required police protection to do so, because she was going to a previously all-white school, and there were threats of violence.
That day, two schools were desegregated in the city. Three girls went to McDonough No. 19 Elementary, and Ruby Bridges attended William Frantz Elementary. All four were escorted by U.S. Marshals. White parents boycotted the schools, refusing to allow their children to attend the same school as Black children.
Bridges and "The McDonough Three" had to pass a test to prove they were "worthy" to attend the white schools. God only knows -- Ruby, as I said, was 6, and probably didn't remember, and the white men who made the test are almost certainly all dead now -- what "worthy" meant. We're not talking about wielding the power of Thor in a hammer here. We're talking about being allowed to attend a school the law previously said that you couldn't.
As Ruby entered the school with her armed escort, a crowd of ignorant buffoons used the kind of language that they would be appalled to hear their own children hearing. They threw rocks and rotten fruit at her. One of the Marshals escorting Ruby that day, Charles Burks, later said, "She showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She didn't whimper. She just marched along, like a little soldier."
Only one teacher at the school, Barbara Henry, agreed to teach Ruby. Ruby went to her classroom and the only other person in the room was Mrs. Henry. Ruby would remain the only student in the class for over a year.
Her father hadn't wanted Ruby to attend the school, but her mother saw it as an important "step forward" for all Black children in their community. Eventually, the white boycott of the school subsided, but the Bridges family still experienced horrors from the community. Every morning as she walked to school, a woman called out threats to Ruby, saying she was going to poison the girl. Another woman held up a Black doll in a little coffin. Her father was fired from his job. Ad their local grocery store refused to let them shop there any longer.
In New Orleans. A city that celebrates its outlaw, even piratical, past. A city which once had a higher percentage of its black people free, rather than enslaved, of any major city in the South.
In 1964, Norman Rockwell painted The Problem We All Live With, depicting what Ruby was up against. At the age of six years old. It appeared on the cover of the January 14, 1964 issue of Look magazine.
Ruby Bridges later became a civil rights activist, married a man named Malcolm Hall, and had 4 sons. At her suggestion, President Barack Obama had Norman Rockwell's painting of her hung outside the Oval Office for several months in 2011. While looking at the painting with Bridges, the President told her, "If it hadn't been for you, I might not be here."
Ruby Bridges Hall in 2020
As of November 14, 2022, Ruby Bridges Hall is still alive, and living in New Orleans. She is 68 years old. That's not that old. This garbage didn't happen all that long ago. Or, to put that into additional perspective: Ruby Bridges is 3 months younger than Jerry Seinfeld, 14 days younger than Elvis Costello, 1 day younger than Corbin Bernsen (a.k.a. Arnie Becker of L.A. Law), 22 days older than Barry Williams (a.k.a. Greg Brady of The Brady Bunch), 31 days older than Scott Bakula (who starred on NCIS: New Orleans), and 32 days older than David Lee Roth.
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November 14, 1960 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek: Monday Night Football was still 10 years away. And neither the NBA nor the NHL had any games scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.
