Ruby Bridges

Ruby Nell Bridges was six years old when she walked through a screaming mob of white protesters to become the first Black child to integrate an all-white elementary school in the Deep South. On November 14, 1960, flanked by four federal marshals, she walked into William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans and into history. All the white parents pulled their children from the school. For an entire year, Ruby was taught alone by Barbara Henry, the only teacher willing to teach her.

Born in Tylertown, Mississippi, in 1954, Bridges was selected to integrate the school after passing a test designed to prevent Black students from qualifying. Her parents were divided — her father feared for the family's safety, while her mother insisted that Ruby have the opportunity they never had. Federal marshals escorted Ruby to school every day, and she never missed a day.

Norman Rockwell's 1964 painting The Problem We All Live With — depicting a small Ruby in a white dress walking past a wall splattered with thrown tomatoes, escorted by towering marshals — became one of the most iconic images of the civil rights era. Bridges has spent her adult life as an activist and author, founding the Ruby Bridges Foundation to promote tolerance and change through education. She published Through My Eyes, a children's book about her experience, and continues to speak at schools across the country.