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Ruby Nell Bridges Hall (born September 8, 1954) is an American activist. She is known for being the first black child to attend an all- white elementary school in the South. She went to William Frantz Elementary School.

Ruby Bridges was born in Tylertown, Mississippi, to Abon and Lucille Bridges. When she was 4 years old, the family moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1960, when she was 6 years old, her parents responded to a request from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Her father was hesitant, but her parents allowed her to participate in the integration of the New Orleans school system.

Integration

In a 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court made Racial segregation against the law. Ruby, who was born the year the law passed, was chosen to attend the all-white William Frantz Elementary School. The school board said that black children could attend the first grade if they passed a test. Bridges passed the test. As soon as Bridges entered the school, many white parents pulled their children out. Only one person agreed to teach Bridges, and that was Barbara Henry from Boston, Massachusetts. For over a year Henry taught her alone, "as if she were teaching a whole class."

On her first day of school, four U.S. Marshals had to go with her to school. Angry crowds of parents shouted threats at her and parents did not let their children go to school. There was such chaos that first day that Ruby could not make it to her classroom. For the next six months, the marshals took her to and from her school. Former United States Deputy Marshal Charles Burks later recalled, "She showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She didn't whimper. She just marched along like a little soldier, and we're all very very proud of her."

On the second day of school, the boycott broke. After this, more people started sending their children to school again. This does not mean that all of the trouble was over, however. People tried to hurt her family. Her father lost his job and her grandparents were thrown off their farm in Georgia. Ruby never missed a day of school that year. The story of her going to a white school is the subject of a Norman Rockwell painting called The Problem We All Live With.

Ruby finished elementary school and graduated from high school. Bridges went on to become a travel agent for American Express. Mrs. Ruby Bridges Hall is married and has four sons. She still lives in New Orleans. In 1999, she wrote a children's book, Through My Eyes, telling her story. The same year she started the Ruby Bridges Foundation to promote "the values of tolerance, respect, and appreciation of all differences." She travels and talks to children all over the country.

On January 8, 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Ruby Bridges the Presidential Citizens Medal. She was one of 28 to receive the medal that day.

Ruby Bridges quotes

"Don't follow the path. Go where there is no path and begin the trail. When you start a new trail equipped with courage, strength and conviction, the only thing that can stop you is you!"

"I now know that experience comes to us for a purpose, and if we follow the guidance of the spirit within us, we will probably find that the purpose is a good one."

"Racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using our children to spread it."

Interesting Facts About Ruby Bridges

Ruby enjoyed jumping rope, climbing trees, and playing softball when she was young.

On November 14, her first day at William Frantz Elementary School, she was the only student there.

Barbara Henry was the only teacher who agreed to teach Ruby. She began teaching Ruby on her second day of school.

Ruby's courageous story can be read to children from the book The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles.

Ruby was one of only six children who passed the entrance test, which was designed to be difficult.

Awards and honors

In September 1995, Bridges and Robert Coles were awarded honorary degrees from Connecticut College and appeared together in public for the first time to accept the awards.

Bridges' Through My Eyes won the Carter G. Woodson Book Award in 2000.

On August 10, 2000, the 40 year anniversary of her walk into William Frantz Elementary School, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder made Ruby Bridges an Honorary Deputy U.S. Marshal.

On January 8, 2001, Bridges was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton.

In November 2006, Bridges was honored as a "Hero Against Racism" at the 12th annual Anti-Defamation League "Concert Against Hate" with the National Symphony Orchestra, held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

On May 19, 2012, Bridges received an Honorary Degree from Tulane University at the annual graduation ceremony at the Superdome.

Two elementary schools are named after Bridges: one in Alameda, California, and another in Woodinville, Washington. A statue of Bridges stands in the courtyard of William Frantz Elementary School.

Images for kids

Ruby Bridges speaking at Texas A&M University-Commerce in February 2015

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Ruby Nell Bridges Hall (born September 8, 1954) is an American activist. She is known for being the first black child to attend an all- white elementary school in the South. She went to William Frantz Elementary School. Ruby Bridges was born in Tylertown, Mississippi, to Abon and Lucille Bridges.

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Superhero kids of STEM: Meet Ann Makosinski

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Full Transparency Our editorial transparency tool uses blockchain technology to permanently log all changes made to official releases after publication. However, this post is not an official release and therefore not tracked. Visit our learn more for more information.

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Bye Bye Plastic Bags founders and team in 2014
In 2014, sisters Melati and Isabel Wijsen were students in Grades 6 and 7 at Green School Bali. They came up with the idea of Bye Bye Plastic Bags to organize petitions, awareness-raising campaigns and massive beach clean-ups. Swimming in the seas just off her childhood beach, Melati recalls emerging from the ocean with a plastic bag wrapped around her arm. Determined to change things, they went on to start the biggest "Children Driven Action" campaign the island - if not the country - has ever seen. Collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures on a petition to free Bali of single use plastic bags, their advocacy efforts finally bore fruit in 2018, when the Bali government banned all single-use plastics.
The idea for the campaign, recalls Melati, came from a lesson at school, "If we are the future of Bali and the world, we have to start thinking about how we can become like our role models now." It is the belief instilled in all students at Green School; that they are changemakers - not just of the future, but NOW.
Melati presenting her graduating "greenstone" on female empowerment
The sisters have taken their mission to ban single-use plastics worldwide, the NGO is now active in 29 countries. Their Mountain Mamas project trains local women in Bali to hand-make reusable bags from donated or recycled materials. Last year, Melati co-chaired the final session of the World Economic Forum's Sustainable Development Impact Summit in New York. She also recently launched a second charity - called Youthtopia - aimed at inspiring other young change-makers to pursue their goals.
The Forbes recognition, "proving you're never too young to achieve real success" is a beautiful one, and builds on the foundation that Green School Bali seeks to lay for its students in their formative years, on being changemakers of today. Educating for sustainability and nurturing green leaders is our route to making the world sustainable, and Melati and Isabel are a beautiful manifestation of how that is possible.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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"When people say something is impossible, the sheer absoluteness of that statement should be a motivation to investigate further."

The Ocean Cleanup's headquarters are in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with over 120 employees from more than 30 countries. In the role of CEO, Boyan focuses on strategy and relationships with key partners as well as serving as a figurehead for our crew, but continues to be deeply involved in the organization's scientific and technological work, through which he has co-authored around a dozen scientific papers and multiple patents.

Timeline

1994: Born in Delft, the Netherlands

1997: Builds his first 'invention', a chair

2004: Nearly burns down house due to a chemistry experiment gone wrong

2009: Sets a Guinness World Record for 'launching most water rockets simultaneously' (213)

2011: Dedicates high school science project to ocean plastic pollution

2012: Enrolls in Aerospace Engineering at the Delft University of Technology

2012: Presents initial plan to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch at TEDxDelft

2013: Drops out of university, founds The Ocean Cleanup as a non-profit organization

2013 - present: CEO of The Ocean Cleanup

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Boyan Slat * Founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup

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Boyan Slat (27 July 1994) is a Dutch inventor and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup; a non-profit organization developing and scaling technologies to rid the world's oceans of plastic.

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After graduating from Dartmouth College in Environmental Studies, William began work as a Global Fellow for the design firm . William is an entrepreneur, , and has worked with the WiderNet Project to develop appropriate technologies curriculums focused on bridging the gap between "knowing" and "doing" for young people in Malawi and across the world.

Currently, William works with Moving Windmills to co-create innovative solutions using recycled materials, appropriate technology, and human-centered design with teams of young Malawians. William is currently working to bring the Moving Windmills Innovation Center to life in Kasungu, a space where young people will find the tools and mentorship to co-create simple solutions to everyday agricultural challenges.

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After graduating from Dartmouth College in Environmental Studies, William began work as a Global Fellow for the design firm . William is an entrepreneur, , and has worked with the WiderNet Project to develop appropriate technologies curriculums focused on bridging the gap between "knowing" and "doing" for young people in Malawi and across the world.

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Meet the teenager whose one-person protest sparked a worldwide climate revolution! Discover more about this young eco-hero in our top ten Greta Thunberg facts...
Who is Greta Thunberg?

1) Greta Thunberg is an environmental activist. She was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2003. When she was eight, she started learning about climate change. The more she learned, the more baffled she became as to why so little was being done about it.

2) At the age of 11, Greta became so sad about climate change that she temporarily stopped speaking!

3) Greta has Asperger syndrome, a condition that affects how people socialise. But Greta views her condition as a positive, calling it her "superpower"! She says it helps her see the world in black and white, and that there are "no grey areas when it comes to climate change."

4) In August 2018, Greta decided to take action. Instead of going to school, she made a large sign that read ' SCHOOL STRIKE FOR CLIMATE ', and calmly sat down outside the Swedish parliament. Her aim? To make politicians take notice and act to stop global warming.

5) Greta was inspired by teenage activists in Florida, USA, who were protesting to end gun violence. Read more about the School Strike for Climate protests that Greta inspired!

6) Greta's strike was picked up by the Swedish media, and the word started to spread. Soon enough, tens of thousands of students from around the world joined her #FridaysforFuture strikes - skipping school on Fridays to protest against climate change.

Greta with her original sign outside the Swedish parliament.

7) In March 2019, climate campaigners across the world, and inspired by Greta, came together to co-ordinate the first Global Strike for Climate. It was huge - over 1.6 million people from 125 countries took part! There are further global strikes planned for September this year.

8) Since her strike began, Greta's life has become a whirlwind! She's given rousing speeches to politicians, to the EU parliament, the UK parliament, to protesters and more. She's appeared in documentaries and had loads of books and articles written about her. She's even been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize!

9) In August 2019, Greta travelled on a wind and solar-powered boat from Plymouth, UK, to New York, USA - the journey took 15 days! Greta will be at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York, where she'll demand action from world leaders.

10) Greta has named Rosa Parks, the civil rights activist, as one of her greatest inspirations. In the 1950s, Rosa sparked a civil rights movement that improved the lives and treatment of millions of African Americans.

What do you think of our Greta Thunberg facts? Let us know by leaving a comment, below!

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Meet the teenager whose one-person protest sparked a worldwide climate revolution! Discover more about this young eco-hero in our top ten Greta Thunberg facts... 1) Greta Thunberg is an environmental activist. She was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2003. When she was eight, she started learning about climate change.

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A Ukrainian Teenager Invents a Drone That Can Detect Land Mines

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Seventeen-year-old Igor Klymenko worked on his invention while sheltering in a basement from Russian attacks

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Update: SafeWander and Shinozuka in the Spotlight

Since he was named one of WebMD's 2015 Health Heroes, Shinozuka's life has gotten even busier.

"To receive all this attention is definitely surreal," he says. "I never would have imagined that any of this would have occurred."

Eagle-eyed TV viewers might have caught his recent cameo in an ad for Cadillac that aired during the Oscars.

"In January, I received an email from an ad agency," Shinozuka says. "Initially, I actually didn't know who they wanted me to star in the ad for."

The spot, part of the luxury brand's "Dare Greatly" campaign, was shot in Los Angeles.

"I had never been in an ad before. It was a new world, actually," he says. "I was very fortunate to be a part of it."

If Tinsel Town doesn't come calling again soon, he's well on his way to making a name for himself in health care technology.

In January, he visited Las Vegas to speak at the Digital Health Summit during the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It was his second trip to CES. The first, in 2015, was as a spectator.

"It blows my mind, really," Shinozuka says of the show.

In February, he received a $50,000 grant from Digital Health Marketplace for a joint pilot program at Hebrew Home, an assisted-living facility in Riverdale, NY.

SafeWander was one of 10 companies to receive funds.

"It's really incredible to see the sheer amount of innovation that's occurring in the health care technology space," he says. "It's exciting to know that we're living in a time when so many [advancements] are happening."

How does he see his own role in that space?

"To be able to contribute to that broader effort to utilize technology to make the world a healthier place is something that's very special," he says.

As far as the future, in the short term, an Android app for SafeWander is in the works. In addition to the Hebrew Home, the product is also being piloted in assisted living facilities in Maine and California.

"It's exciting to see that SafeWander is being used by lots of different institutions," Shinozuka says. "We're just trying to make sure that [it] can be delivered to as many different people as possible."

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Since he was named one of WebMD's 2015 Health Heroes, Shinozuka's life has gotten even busier. "To receive all this attention is definitely surreal," he says. "I never would have imagined that any of this would have occurred." Eagle-eyed TV viewers might have caught his recent cameo in an ad for Cadillac that aired during the Oscars.

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Birthday: September 8, 1954- Present Day Who is Ruby Bridges? Ruby Bridges is an American activist on civil rights who started activism at a young age. At 6 years old, she was the youngest member of an African-American group for racial integration of American schools.

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Fifteen year old Ann decided to invent a light source that wouldn't require any batteries. She ended up creating the Hollow Flashlight, a flashlight that runs solely off the heat of the human hand.

Ann's flashlight went viral and caused an international news frenzy as it scooped up top prizes at the Google Science Fair and the Intel Science & Engineering Fair.

Ann's first year at university began with being the face of Uniqlo's Heattech Fleece campaign and recieving the Sustainable Entrepreneurship Award, which Obama was given the previous year.

Jimmy Fallon invited Ann back to debut her latest invention, the eDrink: a mug that harvests the excess heat of your hot drink and converts it into electricity to charge a phone.

Ann's 2017 began with a bang - a spot on the Forbes Magazine's 30 Under 30 list.

However Ann's life was put on pause when she contracted encephalitis, and she spent the next five months recovering and doing physical therapy so her body could relearn how to walk, see, and move normally.

In 2019, Ann returned to Chile to speak at Festival Internacional de Innovacion Social, the Think B!G Summit in Cleveland, and recieved the "Rising Star of the Year" title at the first Greentech Festival in Berlin held by Formula One champion Nico Rosberg.

Ann then took a step out of her usually science-oriented world and was accepted to study acting at the renowned Herbert Berghof Studios in New York City.

Fully settled into NYC, Ann studied acting and worked on her line of childrens toys that ran off of green energy, which were profiled on CNN.

Ann also made time to speak at the Lili'uokalani Fund in Honolulu, Girl Scouts in Omaha, Red Bull University in Toronto, Durham College in Oshawa, and she worked with RBC on their Future Launch campaign.

Since the start of the pandemic, Ann resumed (albeit virtually) studying for her English Literature degree at UVic.

Before 2020 ended, Ann spoke virtually to an engineering program run by the University of Tennessee, a Workplace Skills summit for UVic Gustavson Business School, the Rukami Festival in Russia, and on a panel for Kids for Kids Habilin Phillipines.

This past fall, Entrepreneur Magazine named Ann on their annual "Young Millionaires" list.

Her toy (ad)venture has been put on hold, but she knows greener pastures lie ahead.

During 2021, Ann has hosted a science experiment for Rebel Girls Adventure Awaits Fest, spoke to King Abdullah's University of Science and Technology undergrad students, presented to a program run by John Hopkin's Center for Talented Youth, hosted Kahoot's EDU Summit, and hosted a panel for Global Skills Day.

Ann's aspirations for the near future include continuing to inspire others to help innovate a better future, beginning her on-camera career, writing her first book, getting her patented inventions onto market & directing her own scripts.

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Melati (21) and Isabel Wijsen (19) started Bye Bye Plastic Bags at the ages of 10 and 12, after being inspired by a lesson in school about significant people, like Nelson Mandela, Lady Diana, and Mahatma Gandhi. The sisters returned home that day and asked themselves, 'What can we do as children living in Bali, NOW, to make a difference?' Bye Bye Plastic Bags was born in 2013 and has now grown into a well known international movement of inspiration, youth empowerment, and of course, saying NO to plastic bags.

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Melati (21) and Isabel Wijsen (19) started Bye Bye Plastic Bags at the ages of 10 and 12, after being inspired by a lesson in school about significant people, like Nelson Mandela, Lady Diana, and Mahatma Gandhi. The sisters returned home that day and asked themselves, 'What can we do as children living in Bali, NOW, to make a difference?'

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5 Facts About 'Boyan Salt'- A Young Entrepreneur!

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Boyan Salt, a young entrepreneur aged 21 has created a revolution by inventing technologies to tackl

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William Kamkwamba is an inventor and author from the African country of Malawi. His first success was a windmill made out of scrap materials that provided electricity to his…

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In the weeks leading up to the 2018 Swedish election, Thunberg sat in front of the parliament building with her sign. She wanted the lawmakers entering the building to do something about climate change. The first day of the strike she was alone, but more people joined her as the strike continued. After the election Thunberg returned to school four days a week but still skipped school on Fridays to strike. These were called Fridays for Future. It inspired hundreds of thousands of students around the world to participate in their own Fridays for Future. Students held strikes in many countries, including Belgium, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Finland, Denmark, France, and the Netherlands.

Soon after Thunberg began her strike, she received invitations to speak about climate change. She spoke at various United Nations climate events, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the European Parliament, and in front of the legislatures of Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Her speeches were collected in a book and published as No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference (2019). In May 2019 Thunberg was named one of Time magazine's Next Generation Leaders. Seven months later, in December, she was named Time 's Person of the Year.

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Greta Thunberg is a Swedish activist who works to address the problem of climate change. She is the founder of a movement known as Fridays for Future. It is also known as...

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Recommended for Preparatory Grades

Igor Klymenko, a teen from Ukraine, makes a drone that can find land mines. At age 17, he locked himself in a basement to work on his invention. During this time, Russian troops were attacking the area.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 meant that Igor had to leave his home in Kyiv. As the war raged all around them, he and his family ran away to the country and hid in the basement of a house.

At the time, he was living with eight different people. He could hear explosions, rockets, and planes the whole time he was there, which made it hard for him to concentrate, just focus, and not think about the war.

Key facts!

Klymenko thought that by using his knowledge of computer science and engineering, he could make the process of detecting land mines safe.

He worked with different researchers and programmers to make his quadcopter mine detector as good as it could be.

Right now, he has two working prototypes of the device and two patents from the Ukrainian government.

Klymenko got the Global Student Prize at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City.

This prize is worth a total of $100,000 and is given to a student who has done something good for society, learning, or their peers' lives.

Klymenko says that winning the Global Student Prize has given him a chance to tell the world his story.

In addition to showing the world the problem of land mines, and how it affects people.

He also says that winning the prize is a good chance to find other people who want to help me make this device and save lives.

He plans to use some of the prize money to make his drone better and more useful.

Youtube user "Cheggdotorg" shares the inspiring story of Igor Klymenko.
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Ukrainian teen develops drone that can sniff out landmines! | Curious Times

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Recommended for Preparatory Grades Igor Klymenko, a teen from Ukraine, makes a drone that can find land mines. At age 17, he locked himself in a basement to work on his invention. During this time, Russian troops were attacking the area. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 meant that Igor had to leave his home in Kyiv.

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Melati & Isabel Wijsen - Indonesian Ocean Pride

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Connecting Hearts and Pride to Indonesia's Oceans

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For someone who gets violently seasick, Boyan Slat spends a lot of time thinking about the ocean. The Dutch inventor has designed the world's first ocean plastic cleanup system but admits he won't be on the ship with it when it launches out of San Francisco on Saturday. "I am not a man of the sea," he says.

After five and a half years of hard work, the 23-year-old Slat will watch from dry land as System 001 - a floating barrier nearly 2,000ft long - snakes its way out under the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific. Its destination is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a gyre of plastic waste twice the size of Texas held in position by ocean currents between California and Hawaii.

If all goes to plan, Slat says, an array of 60 systems could reduce the amount of plastic there by half by 2025. "I hope that this will be a turning point for the plastic pollution problem," Slat tells TIME in a phone interview a few days before the launch, in between final preparations. "For sixty years it has only gotten worse and worse. Now hopefully we're turning the tide."

The eradication of the garbage patch, and more broadly the salvation of our oceans, has been Slat's single-minded goal ever since he was 16 years old, when a diving trip to Greece yielded more plastic bag sightings than fish. Struck by the idea for a floating barrier that could collect plastic using the power of ocean currents alone, he founded his company, The Ocean Cleanup, aged just 18.

Boyan Slat, CEO of The Ocean Cleanup The Ocean Cleanup

The idea grabbed imaginations around the world. In 2015, an early prototype of System 001 was featured on TIME's list of the best inventions of 2015. The project has come a long way since then, Slat says. "It takes a trained eye to see the similarities."

What was originally envisaged as a large rigid barrier arranged around a central tank for collecting plastic, is today an unmanned, modular system that moves with the currents, naturally gravitating to areas of higher concentration. From the air it looks like a pipeline sitting on the surface of the sea, but beneath the waves lies a 10ft deep 'skirt,' which traps plastic accumulated by the current.

Because the system is solid rather than a net, Slat says sea life will be protected from becoming ensnared. The hope is that plastic will accumulate as if on a seashore, ready to be collected by boats and taken for recycling.

It's an ambitious plan, and one that has received millions of dollars of funding thanks to fast-shifting public opinion on plastic. In December 2017, 193 countries signed a U.N. resolution to eliminate ocean plastic pollution, and big corporations like McDonald's are moving to remove single-use plastics from their stores. (Some say not fast enough.) The U.N. says over 8 million tons of plastic still enter the oceans each year - the equivalent of a garbage truck full of plastic every minute.

But reducing our addiction to plastic is just one half of the equation, Slat says. "These garbage patches won't go away by themselves. Even if we were to close the tap today the plastic would still be there in 100 years."

System 001 floating in the San Francisco Bay before its launch The Ocean Cleanup

Slat sees his mission as a race against time. Plastic gradually breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics which can eventually enter the food chain. Currently, however, just 8% of the plastic mass in the Pacific garbage patch is microplastics, according to research carried out by The Ocean Cleanup published in the journal Scientific Reports. "But of course what's going to happen over the next few decades is that all the other 92% of plastic will be turned into microplastics as well," Slat says. "So the sooner we get it out, the better."

A thorny question remains in what will happen to the plastic that is brought back to shore from The Ocean Cleanup's systems. Slat says he wants to turn it into branded merchandise, but acknowledges that all depends on the quality of the plastic, which remains a mystery. In any case, most of the plastic in the oceans is single-use, Slat argues. "By not making it into anything single-use, you can already reduce the chances of it ending up back in the oceans by 99%," he says.

But it's possible that lots of the waste returned to land will have to be carted off to third-party recycling plants and eventually recycled into more single-use plastics that might one day return to the oceans. The task ahead isn't so much Herculean as Sisyphean.

Nevertheless, Slat isn't dissuaded easily. "Big problems require big solutions," he says. "If anyone has any better ideas, we'd love to know."

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This Dutch Teen Dreamed of Cleaning Up the Ocean. Now, It's Happening

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For someone who gets violently seasick, Boyan Slat spends a lot of time thinking about the ocean.

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MELATI & ISABEL WIJSEN - Mission Magazine

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Sisters Melati and Isabel Wisen talk about their environmental organization called BBPB, which stands for Bye Bye Plastic Bags. It was founded in Bali in 2013 when Melati was 12 years old and Isabel was 10 years old.

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MELATI & ISABEL WIJSEN

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