The Backyard Tourist

Cultural Road Trips Within One Tank of Gas

“The Scenic Route for the Culturally Curious.”

Ruby Bridges: Icon of Civil Rights

I recently saw Ruby Bridges speak in Chicago to a room full of educators, school board members and school administrators from all over Illinois. Ruby Bridges is the child depicted in Norman Rockwell’s The Problem We All Live With.  The painting was originally published as a centerfold in the January 14, 1964, issue of Look Magazine. The painting was displayed (on loan from the Norman Rockwell Museum) in the White House during the Obama Administration.

"The Problem We All Live With" Norman Rockwell, 1964
The Problem We All Live With is a 1964 painting by Norman Rockwell that is an iconic and profoundly moving image of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. It depicts six year old Ruby Bridges, an African-American girl, on her way to William Frantz Elementary School, an all-white public school, on November 14, 1960, during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis. Because of threats of violence against her, she is escorted by four deputy U.S. marshals. the painting is framed so that the marshals’ heads are cropped at the shoulders, making Bridges the only person fully visible. On the wall behind her are written the racial slur “n***er” and the letters “KKK”; a smashed and splattered tomato thrown against the wall is also visible. The white protesters are not visible, as the viewer is looking at the scene from their point of view.

At age six, Ruby Bridges was the first African American child placed in her neighborhood school in 1960 New Orleans. She became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement. In 2018, she is at once only 64 years old, and an important figure in US Civil Rights history.

Women at William Franz Elementary School yell at police officers during a protest against desegregation at the school, as three black youngsters attended classes at the school for the second day. Some carry signs stating “All I Want For Christmas is a Clean White School” and “Save Segregation Vote, States Rights Pledged Electors”

She told her story to Illinois educators through the eyes of both an innocent child who didn’t understand the historic and social impact of the anger, protest and progress going on around her, and also as a wise adult who lost a son to gun violence.

Ruby Bridges still remembers when she was just age 6, and the NAACP requested for her parents to allow her to participate in the integration of the New Orleans School system.  She was one of six Black children chosen in New Orleans for the task and Ruby’s father was hesitant for her safety.

Ruby Bridges at age 6. Photo by Paul Slade.

Ruby recalled that on her first day of school, her neighbors watched as she was walked to the car by four National Guard Marshalls. Her adult neighbors-the parents and grandparents of her friends-who knew about the desegregation, left their homes and walked behind the car in solidarity and escorted her to school, shielding her from the hate, rage and racism of people who wanted to keep her out of the school. She pointed out that our social culture lacks that kind of community and neighborhood support today.

As an innocent child, when she saw her neighbors who walked along side her car, she misunderstood and thought it was a Mardi Gras parade, noting that upon driving up to the school, she saw a large crowd of people shouting and throwing things. She recalled, “living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras. There was a large crowd of people outside of the school. They were throwing things and shouting, and that sort of goes on in New Orleans at Mardi Gras”

Every child’s neighbors should be this excited about the education of their neighbors.

Ruby Bridges escorted to school by US Marshals in 1960

Racism is a disservice to ourselves and others. In 1999, she formed the Ruby Bridges Foundation, which promotes the values of tolerance, respect, and appreciation of all differences. The foundation’s motto is, “Racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using our children to spread it.” 

Fight good and evil, not black and white.