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The author shows that black and white were separated everywhere

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Six-year-old Ruby Bridges walked up the steps to her new school on November 14, 1960. It was her first day at William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ruby's mother had walked with her, but they weren't alone

Four U.S. federal marshals were with Ruby, too. They were there to protect her from the angry crowd of people at the school who didn't want Ruby there. Why? She was the first African American student to attend an all-white elementary school in the South.

At the time, many schools-especially in Southern states-were segregated, meaning that Black children attended different schools from white kids. Even though this had been against the law since 1954, it was still happening at William Frantz Elementary when she integrated, or attended school with children of different races.

People had been fighting against school segregation for many years, ever since the first laws to separate Black and white students were passed after the Civil War. It would take many brave people-including children like Ruby-to make people see that the laws did not provide equal education for all children and needed to change.

A long road ahead

Before the Civil War (1861-1865), enslaved children were not allowed to attend school. Soon after the war ended, the U.S. government required former slaveholding states that had fought against the Union to educate both white and Black children. Then, in 1868, Congress passed the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed every citizen equal rights and protection under the law-including equal access to education.

Not everyone agreed with these decisions. Southern leaders did not want Black people to have the same rights as white people. So most Southern states adopted a group of laws in the late 1870s, called Jim Crow laws, to segregate Black and white people. Throughout the South, nearly all public places-restaurants, parks, movie theaters, trains, swimming pools, schools, and even drinking fountains-were separated by race. It was because of these new laws that Black children could not attend the same schools as white children in the South.

Separate but not equal

Despite the 14th Amendment, Southern states were able to legally segregate Black and white children because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1896 called Plessy vs. Ferguson. After Homer Plessy, a Black man, tried to sit in a whites-only train car, the court ruled that as long as Black and white people were treated equally, they could be separated by race. This became known as "separate but equal."

But "separate but equal" wasn't truly equal-conditions in places meant for Black people were usually much worse than those for white people. For instance, Black schools often had leaking roofs, sagging floors, and windows without glass. They were also overcrowded, with too many students per teacher and not enough desks or books. If books were available, they were old, outdated ones from white schools.

Black families knew that if they wanted their children to have an equal education that these laws needed to change. And the only way to do that was through the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hope for equality

In 1951, eight-year-old Linda Brown was not allowed to attend an all-white elementary school in Topeka, Kansas. Her father, Oliver Brown, did not think this was fair and filed a lawsuit against the Topeka Board of Education.

Around the same time, four other lawsuits challenging school segregation had been filed, so in 1952, the Supreme Court combined all of them into one. The justices would decide once and for all if schools could separate students based on the color of their skin.

Thurgood Marshall-who would later become the first African American Supreme Court justice-represented the five children and their families in a case called Brown vs. Board of Education. He argued that segregation was not equal and was actually harmful to children. The court agreed. On May 17, 1954, every single justice decided that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional, which meant that separating children in public schools by race went against what had been outlined in the U.S. Constitution.

School segregation was now against the law. States were ordered to begin desegregating their public schools. But changes were slow to come.

The Little Rock Nine

Some school districts defied the 1954 order by not integrating immediately or simply doing nothing. Other school boards purposefully delayed integration by years by integrating only one grade each year. Other white parents refused to send their children to integrated schools or held angry protests that were sometimes violent to prevent Black children from registering.

To help move integration along, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) decided to recruit a group of nine Black students to integrate Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The teenagers gathered on September 4, 1957, to enter the school. But the governor had called in the Arkansas National Guard, which blocked them from entering the building.

The story made headlines across America, and many people were outraged that Southern states were still defying the Supreme Court ruling. A few weeks later, on September 25, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered federal troops to escort the students-now known as the Little Rock Nine-into the school. This time the students' integration efforts were successful.

The fight continues

After the Little Rock Nine, more and more Black families courageously started sending their children to all-white schools. It wasn't an easy decision for parents to make, since kids often faced bullying and loneliness. For instance, Ruby Bridges often sat in class with only her teacher because white parents didn't want their children in school with a Black student. Even Vice President Kamala Harris was part of a program in 1970 to bus children far from their neighborhoods to integrate schools in Berkeley, California.

Racial inequalities in the nation's school system still exist today, more than 65 years after the Brown decision. Schools in wealthier, mostly white neighborhoods sometimes have better technology, higher-quality books, and smaller class sizes; schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods with more people of color sometimes have older or broken computers, overcrowded classes, and buildings in need of repair.

But people continue to speak out against these inequalities and fight for equal education for all students. As former President Barack Obama said, "In the years to come, we must continue striving toward equal opportunities for all our children. ... Because when children learn and play together, they grow, build, and thrive together."

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For years, many public schools separated children based on their race. Here's how that changed so that kids of all races could go to school together.

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The author teaches that Ruby Bridges went to an all-white school and lots of people threatened her because they didn't want a black child to go to school with white children in an all-white school

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Kids learn about the biography of Ruby Bridges, the first African-American child to attend an all white elementary school in the South.

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The author tells how Ruby had other people support her and the court changes the laws in order to stop segregation for all

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In 1960, Ruby Bridges (September 8, 1954-present) walked through the doors of William Frantz Elementary School, in New Orleans, Louisiana. By doing so, she became the first African-American student to attend an all-white elementary school in the Southern United States.

On November 14, 1960, Ruby Bridges became a symbol of the U.S. civil rights movement. She was just 6 years old. Her simple act of going to an all-white school marked the beginning of integration for U.S. public schools.

Bridges was born in Tylertown, Mississippi, on September 8, 1954. A few months before her birth, the Supreme Court-the nation's highest court -had issued a ruling on five combined cases that would impact not only Bridges's life, but also change the course of American history.

In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the prosecution wanted to end the idea of "separate but equal schools." In many places in the U.S., black students and white students could not attend the same school. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in U.S. public schools was against the constitution. In his opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren stated that "in the field of public education the of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are unequal . . ."

Although it was illegal to have segregated schools, some states-especially in the South-did not follow the ruling. The Supreme Court was aware of the resistance and took action. A year after the ruling, the court declared that the desegregation of public schools should advance with "all deliberate speed." Five years later, little Ruby would become the first student to a Southern elementary school.

A Promising Student

When Bridges was 4, the family moved from Mississippi to New Orleans, Louisiana. Her parents hoped a new city would offer better job opportunities. Her father, Abon, found a job working as a gas station attendant and her mother, Lucille, worked nights to help support their growing family.

Bridges attended kindergarten in a segregated school in New Orleans. But in 1960, a federal court ordered that Louisiana all of its public schools. Bridges was a good student. She was chosen to be part of a small group of black students who would take an exam given by the school district. The exam determined which students would attend the all-white schools. Bridges was one of six black children who passed the exam. She enrolled in William Frantz Elementary School. It was just blocks from her home.

At first, Bridges's father refused to enroll his daughter in the all-white school. He feared some would seek revenge on the family. However, her mother convinced him that it was the right decision. She believed their daughter would get a better education at an all-white school. Bridges's parents were unable to read or write. On November 14, federal marshals escorted Bridges and her mother to her new school.

School of One

In a 1997 interview with PBS NewsHour, Bridges recalled preparing to leave for her new school. She remembered looking out the window of a car driven by a U.S. marshal. "Driving up, I could see the crowd," she said, "but living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras."

The angry crowd chanted, "Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate." They tried to block the entrance to the school. While Bridges and her mother sat in the principal's office, hundreds of parents entered the school and removed their children from their classrooms. "They didn't see a child," Bridges later said in the PBS special series The African Americans. "They saw change and what they thought was being taken from them."

The next day, Bridges was led past the screaming crowd and into the school by four marshals. When she arrived at her classroom, she found a teacher but no students. Her teacher, Barbara Henry, was a Boston, Massachusetts, native who had moved to the South hoping to help schools integrate. She was the only teacher willing to teach Bridges. "She would greet me, take me to my classroom, and it was just her and I," said Bridges. Although Bridges and Henry remained in the classroom alone, neither missed a single day of school that year.

A Lasting Legacy

The following school year, Bridges attended second grade at William Frantz. This time, the crowds had disappeared, and her classroom was full of students. In 1963, she was immortalized in a now-iconic painting called The Problem We All Live With, by artist Norman Rockwell.

In 1999, Bridges established the Ruby Bridges Foundation to teach tolerance to students. The following year, she was made an honorary deputy federal marshal in Washington, D.C. "I am so proud to have received such an honor," she said. "Deputy U.S. marshals are peacemakers and advocates of justice."

In 2014-54 years after she attended her first day of school at William Frantz-a bronze statue of 6-year-old Ruby Bridges was unveiled in the school's courtyard. "We need to honor the power of children," she said at the ceremony. "We need to encourage them that they can do extraordinary things."

Today, Bridges is an author, activist, and public speaker. She continues her work helping people learn to be more accepting of others.

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In 1960, Ruby Bridges (September 8, 1954-present) walked through the doors of William Frantz Elementary School, in New Orleans, Louisiana. By doing so, she became the first African-American student to attend an all-white elementary school in the Southern United States....

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Isabella Gomez - Research Paper - 1734753 (1)

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Segregation means being separated by your race