Nerdy Apple Bottom

Where do I even begin? I am so honored to have been able to interview this woman I can hardly stand it. I’ve told everyone and anyone I know about it. This woman’s story as well as how she carried herself then, as a 6-year-old child, and now, a grown woman living in the wake of Katrina, is nothing short of inspirational.

The short version is that she was selected [made to take a very difficult test that most were unable to pass] to integrate an elementary school in New Orleans. She was met with a lot of hate every single morning as she walked into her classroom of one. Every single morning. And all she wanted was to go to school, learn, play. Those things that all 6-year-old children want to do.

Here is my interview with a civil rights icon that I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to interview.

CW: At what point did it sink it that what you had been asked/told to do was monumental? From the NAACP to Judge Wright and US Marshals, even your parents - do you feel it was a fair thing to ask of a 6-year-old child?

Ruby Bridges: I didn’t realize the significance of what I had done until I was a teenager and saw the Norman Rockwell painting (“The Problem We All Live With”) for the first time. The painting was of me as a six-year-old, escorted by U.S. Marshals into William Franz School in New Orleans.

I do believe asking me was fair. If we as African Americans were going to see change, then someone had to step up to the plate to make it happen. What I did required a great deal of sacrifice from me but also from my family. Even so, the end result was worth it.

CW: How important was your faith and God during your first grade year, the years afterward, and now?

RB: Looking back, I realize my faith played a major role in my coping with my first grade experience, and because of that experience, my faith has become even stronger during the years following this. Now, faith is all that I rely to get me through. I totally believe in the power of prayer.

CW: Do you think your parents would have agreed to send you to William Frantz if they’d known what that year would be like? Would you have allowed your children to be the sole students to integrate a school?

RB: I’m not sure. My farther was completely against it. My mother convinced him to let me go. She was determined and steadfast about us having better opportunities than she was given.

Even so, I do not think that I could have allowed my child to do the same. For me, this would be the ultimate sacrifice. Having lost a child of my own, I am a very over protective mother, and not sure I posses the courage my parents had.

CW: Though there was an overwhelming amount of hate and vitriol, there was also an overwhelming amount of love and support, from friends and family as well as complete strangers. What did it mean to you and your family then and now?

RB: Yes, we had lots of support from community, family, and friends, and even from strangers from nearly every state in the country. I believe it must have given my parents the strength to carry on with their efforts in spite of the immediate danger. They saw this as not only benefitting their own children, but for the betterment of children for generations to come. Their efforts changed the face of education in our nation.

CW: What do you think is the next frontier as far as civil and human rights are concerned?

RB: As someone who contributed to the civil rights of African Americans, I strongly believe in those same rights for all individuals. But beyond this, I would have to say that the next frontier is guarding the very basic fundamental rights our country was founded upon.

These are the rights slipping away from us.

I have family members who cannot afford health care. Elders and youngsters in my family who cannot pay for basic medicine, cannot afford their doctor’s bills. I live in New Orleans and still see the devastation from Katrina. Years later, entire communities are still displaced and are being ignored by a government that prides itself in taking care of its own.

The right to earn a living, to provide for your family, health care, education, these are the human and civil rights I see as being most threatened in the United States.

There are lots of groups fighting for rights based on race, creed or sexual orientation. I wholeheartedly support these, but as I travel the country and meet individuals from all walks of life, my number one concern today is the fact these basic rights, that made us The United States of America, are being pulled out from underneath us.

This is not the America my parents envisioned when they allowed me to desegregate William Franz and it’s certainly not the America I, and so many others, grew up pledging allegiance to.

Now for the questions I ask to each of the individuals I feature:

CW: Have you been bullied or discriminated against? If so, please explain. Have you ever bullied or discriminated against others? If so, explain.

RB: As one of the youngest participants of the civil rights movement, a literal poster child of that movement, I experienced discrimination at its worst. Not just from kids, but also from adults, including an old lady who would meet me at the school each day holding up a black doll inside of a tiny casket. Another lady threatened to poison my food so I would hide my lunch when my teacher, Mrs. Henry, would leave the room.

And, I survived, I might add.

CW: Can intolerance be fixed? If so, how?

RB: I believe it can be fixed. Racism is a grownup disease. We use our kids to spread it. No child is born knowing anything about disliking the baby lying next to them in a hospital nursery. We, as adults, pass this on to them.

All we must do is stop it where it starts, with our kids.

This is why I choose to do the work that I do, in schools today.

CW: What inspires you to want to change the world? (person, book, quote, etc) What is important to you?

RB: What inspires me is Hope. I see it every day in schools when I speak to children across this country. It’s on their faces, in the questions they ask, and the answers they give.

I know change can, and will, come through our children.

What’s important to me is that no child have to endure what I did in 1960, in any form – whether it be bullying or racism or discrimination in any form.

CW: What would you like to accomplish in your lifetime or have as your epitaph?

RB: I want my epitaph to read, “Change begins with you.”

CW: What should we know about you?

RB: As negative as my experience was, it taught me a very valuable and positive lesson. This is the same lesson that Dr. King tried to teach us all, that you do a disservice to yourself and others when you look at a person and judge them by anything other than the content of their character.

You never know who may be there to lift you when you need their hand. The same is true with those who might do you harm. You cannot make these determinations by the exterior alone. Be careful, very careful, when judging a book by its cover.

Thank you.

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Ruby Bridges from milesmaria on Vimeo.

No, thank you, Ms. Bridges. For this interview, for your foundation work, for walking into William Frantz Elementary when it wasn’t the easy thing to do, but it was the right thing.. For the sum of your life up to this moment and beyond. Thank you.

For more information, please visit the Ruby Bridges Foundation website.

You can also ‘like’ Ms. Bridges on Facebook here.

Ms. Bridges has written two books about her experiences. They can be found here and here. These are both children’s books, however ‘Through My Eyes‘ is for a slightly older range, 9-12 years. I am much older than that obviously and enjoyed them a great deal. The photos, the insight, the story itself all pull together to make a heart-wrenching and also uplifting telling of her experiences. I highly recommend them both. They opened up some amazing dialogue with my shorties.

Now it’s time to weigh in: thoughts, comments, let’s hear them. Also, if you have an idea for a potential subject for this series, let me know. I’ll be announcing my next interview in the next couple of weeks.