Born to poor sharecropper parents in Mississippi, when machines replaced the labor pool, there was no income. Moving, her family to New Orleans, LA where her father became a janitor, and when her father arrived home, her mother went to work to clean and scrub floors in a bank.

Attending church, the family always felt they should provide a Christian church value system. When in 1960, a judge ordered four black girls to attend white elementary schools. Three girls attended one school, little six year old Ruby attending William Frantz Elementary School. Alone and scared, she was subjected to pushing, shoving and shouting. When it was feared she would be physically harmed, the president mandated federal marshals to escort her every day going to and coming home rom school.
As the book notes, the city and state did absolutely nothing to help these brave abused children.

When the crowds of parents demanded Ruby go home, they refused attendance for their children. Thus, Ruby was taught by one teacher as the only child in the classroom. Finally, whites wanted their children to attend public school as they paid for this right with taxes.

Ruby's teacher soon grew to respect Ruby's tenacity and bravery. When asked why she was talking to the white mob, Ruby replied she wasn't talking to them, she was praying to God to help her remain brave, and to forgive the nasty whites as they were bent on killing her. Ruby told the teacher she asked God to forgive these people who harmed her for like Jesus suffering, she knew that they knew not what they were doing.

Gradually, the parents allowed their children to go to school, but not to interact or talk to Ruby. Ruby attended school, and graduated from high school.

When she was older, as a married woman with four children, she created the Rugy Bridges Educational foundation which encouraged a safe space for attendance in school, for both whites and blacks.

Independent Reading level: 5-10

Age: 4-8y

As a young 6 year old girl, Ruby was one of four blacks selected by the courts and ordered to attend an all white school in New Orleans in 1960. Under the protection of the U.S. Marshals, because the local and state police refused help, Ruby walks into the empty school, past hordes of angry people lining the sidewalks, jeering, shouting insults and worse. Her maturity in handling this situation was truly remarkable. The water color illustrations are charming, but I wanted a little more substance. ( )

This story follows the true story of ruby bridges who was able to go to one of the first desegregated schools in her home town. This story shows the obstacles ruby had to face and how she overcame them. ( )