On November 14, 1960, Ruby Bridges–a six-year-old–became the first black child to integrate an all-white elementary school in New Orleans. Ruby was escorted by four Federal Marshalls while crowds of segregationist protesters stood outside the William Frantz Elementary school each day to shout insults and threats at a child.
This situation was captured in the iconic painting, The Problem We All Live With, by Norman Rockwell. Ruby was taught one-on-one by Barbara Henry, a teacher who came from Boston to teach her. The other teachers refused to allow Ruby to join their classes.
I found This Is Your Time moving and insightful. This is a book every American should read. GRADE: A
I remember watching the 1998 television movie RUBY BRIDGES. Lela Rochon played her mother (who died last week) and Penelope Ann Miller played the teacher. It was very well done.
Jeff, I agree. The TV version of RUBY BRIDGES was excellent.
This is our heritage, isn’t it? We can never live down the lives we, as a nation, destroyed through racism.
Patti, I don’t understand how people could scream epithets at a 6-year-old child who just wants to go to school. Crazy!
As I’ve noted before, this is the depth in its pathetic display of unbridled hatred that could move Norman Rockwell to paint a damning political artifact. (For LOOK, which almost defaulted as conservative as the SAT EVE POST, which I mistakenly thought had commissioned it.)
Sadly, Patti, not just racism, but all sorts of chauvinism, and beyond. The nation, like all nations, has been responsible for a whole lot of sustained crime against its people.
Glad that Bridges has managed to triumph. Although I bet she would’ve traded if given the chance to not be famous for withstanding others’ hatred, at least at the time.
Here’s a useful limning of the current dangers we’re facing because of the dogged centrism of Joe Biden and how the new administration is likely to refuse to do much that it really needs to do:
https://youtu.be/sSwrV4Y2a8g (MAJORITY REPORT hosted by Sam Seder)
Todd, what happens in the Georgia elections in January will impact what (or what won’t) happen in the Biden Administration.
Read about this many years ago and of course the case of Rosa Parks.
Every country/society has its weak spots – too many people are afraid or even hate everyone that is different, whether based on race, religion or whatever.
The present pandemic seems again a start of xenophobia etc.
PS:
Of course we Germans also did a lot of crazy things, even now we have our fascist party AfD.
I’m just hoping that things will get better here though when I read about QAnon or the German “Reichsbürger” …
Wolf, extremism is always dangerous. Very hard to contain…or control!
Some extremism is more dangerous than other extremism. And centrism isn’t by any means always benevolent. Note the century of mostly post-Civil War centrism that did so little to quell all the chauvinism at large in the nation, and how fragile even the smallest advancements can so easily be rolled back or at least undermined.
Todd, our country’s treatment of women over time is pathetic, too.
I mean chauvinism in all its My-group-is-superior-to-yours forms, very much including misogyny and not restricted to it…
I remember when my high school was integrated in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. I read that there was a boycott for a week by students, but I don’t remember that. I do remember some students that I knew switching to other schools (outside of the county or even in other parts of the state). But I don’t remember the church bombing in the same year, which I must have suppressed.
This event I don’t remember. I was 12 at the time. It is embarrassing to look back at all of that.
Tracy, I remember watching the four U.S. Marshalls escort little Ruby Bridges into the school while the crowd shouted at her. It made me feel sad.
I was in the Boston suburbs for the initial busing hassles. So much else, too…elsewhere and there, and continuing…
Todd, hopefully the Biden Administration can address some of the country’s racial issues.
So, this as an example of short personal narrative/memoir, rather than fiction? Somehow, I think I can handle that…
Todd, you could read THIS IS YOUR TIME in 10 minutes. It’s 56 pages of Ruby’s story and photos.