'Through My Eyes, Then and Now '

Imagine being 6 years old, having completed kindergarten and having started your first grade year with classmates who all look like you and with teachers that look like your parents. That probably doesn't take very much imagination for most of us. But then, your parents agree to let you take a test that will decide if you can go to a better school. You with 136 other children who look just like you, take the exam and only 6 pass. Hmm? Anyhow, you are one of those 6. All 6 happen to be girls who will be divided between 2  elementary schools. But 2 of those going to your new school decide not to go, leaving you the only one. You feel very special because everybody is making sure you have new school outfits and you must be so smart, you think you must be going straight to college.  For some reason your Dad isn't excited about this opportunity. The first day of school comes but you won't be walking to school like before but will ride in a car to a school that is closer (?) than your old school. People from your neighborhood all come out and follow behind the car. Wow. Men you don't know are riding in the car with you and your Mom. 

 As the car turns the corner, ahead you see all these people, men, women and children lining the streets, a sight you associate with Mardi Gras when it is not uncommon to see random parades occur on side streets. But these people don't look happy, some have very angry faces and they have signs and are screaming. 

You arrive at the school and the men in your car escort you inside to the office. And there you sit and sit and sit until those men (U.S. Marshals) come and take you back home... 





Your name is Ruby Bridges and you live in the City of New Orleans, the year is 1960 and your life will be forever changed as you begin to understand the separate but not equal world in which you live.

In fact this inequality manifests itself that very first day at William Frantz Elementary with its beautifully polished floors, so shiny you could see yourself, not old and worn like your old school.

Your second day you are taken to a classroom where you are the only student.  Your new teacher looks like those angry people on the street but she has a smile on her face and she has love in her heart and has come from Boston to teach you many new things.    You are her only student that entire year as the other teachers refused to be your teacher. 

Apparently no one knew ahead of time which 2 schools would be the first to integrate so all those white parents with children were waiting outside school that first day to see if a black child would arrive. They took their children home when they saw you arrive. 
You eventually discover only half a dozen other families allowed their children to come to school and those children are being schooled in another part of the building. 

You can not eat in the cafeteria with them and must eat your lunch at your desk in your room. Oh, the loneliness you must feel.

You meet with a counselor weekly at your home. Your father loses his job, your sharecropper grandparents their land and your family receives death threats. And why does this all happen?  Your Father's fears are realized as a result of you being the first to integrate an all white elementary school. It is your African American community who protect you and yours, watch your house and get your Father a new job. 

It was Ruby Bridges who shared this story, her story, as the keynote speaker at our city's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Celebration. There was a strength in her voice beyond its gentleness as she spoke of social justice. You could hear a pin drop in the mesmerized overflowing auditorium, recital hall and lobby audience of about 2000.

Her innocence as a child didn't understand the anger and hatred nor the danger of racism. She spoke of an incident where one student told her his mother said he couldn't play with her because she was a 'nigger.' The young Ms Bridges's feelings were hurt but she didn't question the reason since she understood the importance of following what a parent commanded. Racism, she says is an adult disease taught to children.

Ruby Bridges, motivational speaker/ travel agent, mother of 4 sons, actually now 3 (as gunfire took the life of her eldest) delivered a message of differentiating good and evil. "There's something terrible going on in our communities and we have to take care of our children. All children are ours. One has to decide which side we are on regardless of the community." 

"We are overseas fighting wars for others while at home we are fighting our own wars  in our communities" Ms. Bridges Hall resonated the thoughts of the leader we were honoring with her presence, Martin Luther King Jr.  who said, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Today, we seem to be moving backwards.  Public education is under attack with monies diverted to privatization, higher education's becoming increasingly unaffordable to the middle class, workers salaries are stagnant, racism's on the rise within public and private sectors, the right to vote's threatened and a right wing Congress is making statements to dismantle the social safety net i.e: Social Security and the Affordable Care Act. As our society becomes more and more unequal it is apparent we must heed Ms Bridges words and take better care of 'all' our children and be on the side of good. Our President actually also spoke of this very  priority in his compassionate State of the Union speech.



May we always keep Martin Luther King Jr.'s following words in mind as:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. "


  



Link to interview with Ruby Bridges