Ruby Bridges urges people to ‘choose good’ in the fight against injustice

At UChicago’s MLK event, civil rights icon recalls integrating New Orleans schools and pleads to protect today’s youth

As Ruby Bridges prepared to address a packed Rockefeller Chapel on Jan. 29, black-and-white footage of angry white mobs began to play. The images showed the six-year-old Bridges being escorted by U.S. marshals after single-handedly integrating William Frantz Elementary School more than 60 years ago. 

University of Chicago Assoc. Prof. Rashauna Johnson began a fireside chat with Bridges by pointing out that people often struggle to square the vibrant, youthful civil rights icon with those hate-filled images.

“It speaks to the fact that we think that this happened such a long, long time ago,” said Bridges, who was the first Black student to integrate alone an all-white New Orleans public school in 1960. “And seeing me is a reminder that it wasn’t that long ago. 

The author and activist took part in a wide-ranging discussion at UChicago’s 35th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Celebration—a conversation in which she reflected on her early memories but also how today’s youth must be protected against the “grown-up disease” of racism. 

The conversation was preceded by remarks from UChicago undergraduate student Arsima Araya and President Paul Alivisatos. Both speakers evoked the memory of Dr. King, who spoke at Rockefeller Chapel in 1956 and 1959. 

“People gathered here 60 years ago in search of renewal, inspiration and connection at a time of heightened racial divides and uncertainty,” said Araya, a fourth-year in the College. “I find that we enter this room in eerily similar circumstances.” 

Alivisatos encouraged the gathered UChicago and greater South Side communities to not only honor King’s legacy, but also seek inspiration in Bridges’ story, which he said “exemplifies resilience, courage and the tremendous potential of one individual acting in service of an idea.” 

“She reminds us that the seeds of compassion, once planted, can flourish for generations,” Alivisatos said. 

‘Racism is a grown-up disease’

Six years after Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision ordering the integration of public schools, the New Orleans school system remained sluggish to comply. In 1960, a federal judge ordered schools to integrate.

When the NAACP went knocking door-to-door looking for students to attend all-white schools, Bridges’ parents—sharecroppers from Mississippi—were divided. Her father had recently returned from military service, where racism followed him home from the battlefield.

“For my parents, education was a luxury they could not afford,” Bridges said. “It was my mother that really wanted this opportunity…and like many strong Black women, she won.” 

On the first day of school, Bridges recalled how she and her mother were driven to school by U.S. marshals—tall, white men wearing yellow armbands. They were there to protect Bridges and her mother from a vicious mob and death threats. 

But to six-year-old Bridges, the police barricades and screams seemed like a different day in New Orleans. “I remember looking out the window and thinking: Today is Mardi Gras,” she said. “We’re in a parade.”

“I need you to understand that what protected me was the innocence of a child,” she said.

The entire year, Bridges remained the only student in her class. Parents pulled their students out of school, and teachers quit. Barbara Henry, a white teacher from Boston, was the only one willing to teach Bridges at the school. 

“She made school fun,” Bridges recalled. “She showed me her heart.”

Bridges didn’t realize she had to eat PB&J sandwiches at her desk every day because of threats to poison her. All she wanted to do was make friends. “How was I to know they were there to harm me?” she asked.

“This tells me that where we are today has absolutely nothing to do with your kids,” Bridges said. “Racism is a grown-up disease, and we must stop using our kids to spread it.”

‘Choose good’

Today, Bridges is a mother and grandmother. She established the Ruby Bridges Foundation and has written several books—all aimed at teaching and supporting the next generations. 

Johnson’s final question to Bridges asked: As “someone who has seen the best and worst of humanity,” what resources did the icon pull from to continue her activism? Bridges mentioned the faith and hope that Black people have drawn on for generations. She also talked about Ms. Henry, the first white teacher she’d ever met, who made her feel “loved,” “safe” and who remains her best friend.

“I believe the lesson I went into that classroom to learn, the lesson Dr. King died trying to teach us…is you cannot look at a person and judge them…you have to judge them by the content of their character,” Bridges said. 

Bridges noted that although “racism was alive and well,” today’s much deeper fight is between “good and evil.” Among the evils, she mentioned censorship and the erasure of history, including the banning of her own children’s books, as well as gun violence, which tragically claimed her own son. 

She encouraged those in attendance to join with those with “like minds and like hearts,” regardless of race, to do something good—however small.

“We have to be hopeful, and we have to fight exactly like evil is fighting today,” Bridges said. “Choose good.”