Ruby Bridges

Civil Rights Activist

Ruby Bridges was born on September 8, 1954, in Tylertown, Mississippi. In 1960, when she was 6 years old, her parents responded to a call from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and volunteered her to participate in the integration of the New Orleans School system. Escorted by federal marshals, she marched through screaming crowds into William Frantz Public School in New Orleans—not once, but every day, for five long months.  She is known as the first African-American child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South.