Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi. Everyone, Please note a racial slurry said twice
Speaker 1: in this interview at around the twenty four minute mark.
Speaker 1: Please take care while listening. I remember the knock at
Speaker 1: the door and my parents opened the door and four
Speaker 1: very tall white men were standing at the door, and
Speaker 1: I remember they had these yellow bands on their arms,
Speaker 1: and my thought then was you know who were they?
Speaker 1: And not really knowing, but I remember the conversation. I
Speaker 1: remember them saying, we are US Marshals and we've been
Speaker 1: sent by the President of the United States. Were here
Speaker 1: to escort you and your daughter to school today. That's
Speaker 1: Ruby Bridges, an icon of the civil rights movement. When
Speaker 1: Ruby was six years old, she became the very first
Speaker 1: African American student to desegregate William France Elementary, an all
Speaker 1: white school in Louisiana. She was not only the first,
Speaker 1: but also the only black child attending the school, and
Speaker 1: US marshals had to escort Ruby there to make sure
Speaker 1: she wasn't harmed by protesters along the way. No one
Speaker 1: told Ruby how monumental this moment was, and it would
Speaker 1: be years before she would put all the pieces together
Speaker 1: and fully appreciate her role in shaping the future of
Speaker 1: civil rights in America. I thought that this was an
Speaker 1: incident that just happened in my community, on my street.
Speaker 1: That's what I thought. I wasn't aware that it was
Speaker 1: so important, that it changed the face of education, and
Speaker 1: that people around the country were familiar with it. I
Speaker 1: did not realize that my walk, my story, was a
Speaker 1: part of a much bigger family, the civil rights family,
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement. On today's show, we hear the
Speaker 1: story of how six year old Ruby Bridges changed the
Speaker 1: course of history. I'm Maya Shunker, and this is a
Speaker 1: slight change of plants, a show about who we are
Speaker 1: and who we become in the face of a big change.
Speaker 1: Ruby Bridges was born in nineteen fifty four, the same
Speaker 1: year the US Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in
Speaker 1: Brown Versus Board of Education. Up until that point, public
Speaker 1: schools were allowed to segregate on the basis of race,
Speaker 1: but in Brown v. Board, the Supreme Court declared segregated
Speaker 1: schools to be inherently unequal in rule that it was
Speaker 1: unconstitutional to racially segate children in public schools. Despite this ruling,
Speaker 1: states in the South resisted the Court's order and segregation continued,
Speaker 1: but eventually a federal judge ordered the New Orleans School
Speaker 1: Board to act, and after years of resistance, they finally
Speaker 1: initiated a plan to integrate two white schools, starting with
Speaker 1: students in the first grade. Still, the board did not
Speaker 1: make it easy. They introduced a number of new requirements
Speaker 1: just for black students. One of these requirements was an
Speaker 1: entrance exam, and nearly one hundred and forty perspective first
Speaker 1: graders took the test. A handful of them passed, and
Speaker 1: Ruby Bridges was one of them. Ruby, the NAACP shows
Speaker 1: up at your doorstep in the summer to tell your
Speaker 1: parents that you've passed this test and you're now allowed
Speaker 1: to attend William France Elementary School. I'm wondering how your
Speaker 1: parents responded to this news. My mother was the one
Speaker 1: who really initiated this, and I think, you know, for
Speaker 1: the most part, like most moms, they want, you know,
Speaker 1: the best for their children. And not to say that
Speaker 1: my father didn't want that, but my father had just
Speaker 1: recently gotten out of the service where he fought in
Speaker 1: the Korean War, and a segregated branch of the military.
Speaker 1: He felt like if you could be on the battlefield
Speaker 1: next to a white soldier fighting for the same country,
Speaker 1: and yet at the end of the day, if you lived,
Speaker 1: you couldn't go back to the same barracks together. Because
Speaker 1: he was black and his counterpart was white. They couldn't
Speaker 1: eat in the same mess haul together. So he felt like,
Speaker 1: why send me to this integrated school facing all of
Speaker 1: the problems that could have happened, because things wouldn't change anyway.
Speaker 1: And that's really how he felt. But I do believe
Speaker 1: that they were very excited that I'd passed the test,
Speaker 1: and you know, your mom eventually convinces your dad, who's
Speaker 1: on the fence, right, and they do decide to enroll
Speaker 1: you in William, France that fall, and you know, I
Speaker 1: know there were delays because of increased resistance from opposition,
Speaker 1: but you do end up having an enrollment date of
Speaker 1: November fourteenth, nineteen sixty and the night before your first day,
Speaker 1: your mom tells you that you'll be joining a new school,
Speaker 1: but she doesn't tell you much more than that. No,
Speaker 1: you know, and I grew up in an era where
Speaker 1: you know, you were seen and really not heard. I mean,
Speaker 1: we could not even be in the same room with
Speaker 1: adults when they were having grown up conversation. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like they were gonna sit me down and explain everything
Speaker 1: to me. You know. It was only on a need
Speaker 1: to know basis. That's, you know, how they felt. So
Speaker 1: the only thing they said is Ruby, you're going to
Speaker 1: go to a new school today, and you better behave now.
Speaker 1: I do remember taking the test, you know, weeks before,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't privileged to what the test was about
Speaker 1: what all of that meant. I just knew that I
Speaker 1: was going to be going to a new school. And
Speaker 1: like most kids, you're a little bit nervous when you
Speaker 1: have to switch schools because you're going to leave your
Speaker 1: old friends and you know, and your teacher in the
Speaker 1: school that I had just gotten used to because I
Speaker 1: was only there for kindergarten, so that was it. And also, Ruby,
Speaker 1: you better behave, And that's what I was concentrating on,
Speaker 1: is behaving. I'm wondering, Ruby, if you can bring us
Speaker 1: back to that first morning when you were getting ready
Speaker 1: for your new school. Well, I remember that morning because
Speaker 1: I had already had a first day. I had had
Speaker 1: a first day of the year before, and yet this
Speaker 1: first day was totally different. You know, neighbors were coming
Speaker 1: over my mother's friends were coming to dress me for school,
Speaker 1: and you know, I had all these beautiful new things
Speaker 1: to where that really didn't happen when I started kindergarten,
Speaker 1: and it just seemed like the house was full of
Speaker 1: people and it was all centered around me going to school,
Speaker 1: and so that in itself was very different. Did I
Speaker 1: feel special? Yes? I felt really special for some reason
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, in my tiny six year
Speaker 1: old mind, remembering the test that I had taken and
Speaker 1: how excited everybody you are was about the test. I
Speaker 1: really thought that the reason why this was so different,
Speaker 1: and so many people were excited and congratulating my parents
Speaker 1: and saying, oh my goodness, she's so smart. You know,
Speaker 1: I really felt like, okay, that test must have been
Speaker 1: so important and no other kids could pass it that
Speaker 1: now I am going from first grade straight to college.
Speaker 1: So I thought. I thought everybody was so excited because
Speaker 1: it just had never seen a six year old goes
Speaker 1: straight to college. But you know, that's the imagination of
Speaker 1: a child in the innocence that protected me during that time.
Speaker 1: So I remember that back and forth, and then I
Speaker 1: remember the knock at the door and my parents opened
Speaker 1: the door and four very tall white men were standing
Speaker 1: at the door, and I remember they had these yellow
Speaker 1: bands on their arms, and my thought then was who
Speaker 1: were they? And not really knowing, but I remember the conversation.
Speaker 1: I remember them saying, we're us Marshals, and we've been
Speaker 1: sent by the President of the United States. We're here
Speaker 1: to escort you and your daughter to school today, And
Speaker 1: even then it just felt so important. I remember us
Speaker 1: getting into the car with them. Two of them sat
Speaker 1: in the front seat and two in the back. My
Speaker 1: mom and I got into the car with them and
Speaker 1: we started this very art drive to my new school.
Speaker 1: And then even some of the neighbors they seemed ready
Speaker 1: to go as well, and we got in a car,
Speaker 1: we started to drive, and all of the neighbors actually
Speaker 1: walked behind the car. Wow, did the federal marshals give
Speaker 1: you instructions about what to do when you arrived at
Speaker 1: the school? Not really me, but I overheard the conversation
Speaker 1: where they were talking to my mom about how we
Speaker 1: should get out of the car, and you know, I
Speaker 1: remember them saying this, bridges will get out first, We'll
Speaker 1: surround you in your daughter. We want you to walk
Speaker 1: straight ahead and don't look back. I remembered that I
Speaker 1: did see all of the people standing out in front
Speaker 1: of the school when we drove up. But again, living
Speaker 1: here in New Orleans and being accustomed to mighty gras,
Speaker 1: you know something that every kid here in the city
Speaker 1: looks forward to. When I saw all of the people,
Speaker 1: and I I saw barricades, you know where the people
Speaker 1: were standing behind the barricades. I saw police officers on
Speaker 1: motorcycles and horseback. All of that actually happens during my degras,
Speaker 1: because at any given time, you could be in your
Speaker 1: car and stumbled into a parade and you have to
Speaker 1: stay in your car and wait till the parade passes. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I say that to say that I did
Speaker 1: not feel a need to be afraid. Ruby, You're I mean,
Speaker 1: I have this visual in my head, right there's there's
Speaker 1: people protesting and screaming and rebelling against integration. And from
Speaker 1: what I understand, you know, the community knew that there
Speaker 1: would be some schools that would need to integrate that day,
Speaker 1: but they didn't know which ones, right, So the parents
Speaker 1: in this school are finding out in real time that
Speaker 1: their children's school is the one that's being integrated. Is
Speaker 1: that right? Yes, I mean, the schools were kept secret,
Speaker 1: and so I guess what created the crowd that morning
Speaker 1: is parents showing up to bring their kids to school,
Speaker 1: but they waited outside to see if indeed it was
Speaker 1: going to be their school. And that school normally holds
Speaker 1: about five hundred kids, so you can imagine all of
Speaker 1: the parents that were waiting around out in front of
Speaker 1: the school. And so finally when I drove up, they
Speaker 1: knew it was their school. And so the minute I
Speaker 1: was escorted inside of the building, the federal marshals escorted
Speaker 1: my mom and I straight to the principal's office and
Speaker 1: we went into the principal's office and took a seat
Speaker 1: where I was waiting to be assigned to a class.
Speaker 1: But the next thing that happened is all of those
Speaker 1: parents that had been waiting outside, they immediately rushed inside
Speaker 1: of the building. And as I was sitting there in
Speaker 1: the office with my mom, you know, behind these glass windows,
Speaker 1: the federal marshals were standing right outside the door, so
Speaker 1: no one could actually come into the office, but they
Speaker 1: were passing the office and I could see them and
Speaker 1: they would pass the window, and then you know, a
Speaker 1: few minutes later, I would see them come back by
Speaker 1: the window and there were kids with them. So that
Speaker 1: kept happening all morning, back and forth, and I watched
Speaker 1: that the whole day. Finally the bell rang and the
Speaker 1: principal came into the office and she said school was dismissed.
Speaker 1: You can leave. And I remember thinking, Wow, college is easy,
Speaker 1: you know, because nothing happened. And I was expecting something
Speaker 1: to happen that day, but it didn't because parents went
Speaker 1: into every classroom, they pulled out every child and they
Speaker 1: never came back. Ruby. When you leave school on that
Speaker 1: first day and you head home with your mom with
Speaker 1: these federal marshals, what do you remember from that evening?
Speaker 1: I was excited, you know, in my mind, I didn't
Speaker 1: have a bad day that day. Or my father, I think,
Speaker 1: asked me, you know, how was your day, and I
Speaker 1: said it was, you know, it was good, and that
Speaker 1: was pretty much it. There wasn't a conversation between us.
Speaker 1: I do remember my mom saying when she got home,
Speaker 1: she turned a television set on and she could see
Speaker 1: the whole country was actually watching what was happening. And
Speaker 1: I don't think that either one of them expected that.
Speaker 1: And I remember her saying, oh my god, what have
Speaker 1: I done. There was no way of them knowing exactly
Speaker 1: how this was going to play out. They were told
Speaker 1: to expect some opposition, and that's why the Federal marshals
Speaker 1: were there. I know they expected that, but I don't
Speaker 1: believe they expected what she actually saw that day. On
Speaker 1: the second day of school, from what I've read, the
Speaker 1: protesting seems to intensify even more absolutely because after the
Speaker 1: first day, then the whole country knew which school it was,
Speaker 1: so people gathered forces. They were chanting and screaming and
Speaker 1: shouting all sorts of threats. I think for the most
Speaker 1: part I must have blocked that out, but definitely from photographs,
Speaker 1: from footage that I seen after the fact, they were chanting,
Speaker 1: We're gonna hang her, We're gonna poison her. The federal
Speaker 1: marshals took those threats very seriously. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I was never allowed to have lunch cafeteria because of
Speaker 1: the threats about poisoning me and my mother had to
Speaker 1: prepare my lunch and I would have to eat my
Speaker 1: lunch at my desk and not go to the cafeteria
Speaker 1: because they were concerned about that. But yes, they were
Speaker 1: making all sorts of threats protesters carried a small box
Speaker 1: and it was actually a baby's coffin, and they put
Speaker 1: this black doll inside of the box and they would
Speaker 1: march around the school with it. And so whenever I
Speaker 1: would see the box, that's what would really frighten me
Speaker 1: more than anything. I wasn't I don't really remember being
Speaker 1: frightened of the crowd, but when I had to pass
Speaker 1: the box, I would have nightmares about the box. And
Speaker 1: when it comes to who's going to teach you, all
Speaker 1: of the white teachers at the school, which are all
Speaker 1: the teachers at school, refused to teach you. Right, So
Speaker 1: there's a teacher from Boston, Missus Henry, who ends up
Speaker 1: being your teacher for the year. Well, teachers actually quit
Speaker 1: their jobs across the city, thinking that maybe their school
Speaker 1: was going to be integrated. You know, our guest teachers
Speaker 1: who could afford to quit their jobs or maybe switched
Speaker 1: to other schools. They did that. The few teachers that
Speaker 1: remained in the school really did not want to have
Speaker 1: anything to do with me. Missus Henry had come from
Speaker 1: Boston because her husband was also in the military and
Speaker 1: he was stationed right outside of New Orleans. So she
Speaker 1: was looking for a teacher's position had no idea that
Speaker 1: we were about to go into this integration process, not
Speaker 1: that it mattered anything to her because she was accustomed
Speaker 1: to teaching on military basis, where you know, they were
Speaker 1: kids of different nationalities and backgrounds. So she said that
Speaker 1: it really didn't matter to her what I looked like.
Speaker 1: I've heard her say that. She asked if it was
Speaker 1: going to be an integrated school, and she said they
Speaker 1: said yes. They didn't tell her when you get here, yes,
Speaker 1: today it will be. So I met her on the
Speaker 1: second day, and I remember when I went into the
Speaker 1: building and it was so very quiet, because you know,
Speaker 1: everybody was gone. Yeah, you could hear pin drop when
Speaker 1: I walked up the stairs, and our footsteps echoed in
Speaker 1: the hallways. And when I got to the top of
Speaker 1: the stairs, the principal said, your classes down the hall
Speaker 1: and those federal marshalls. They turned me around and they
Speaker 1: walked me down the hall and to the classroom. When
Speaker 1: I got there, the door opened and this woman stepped
Speaker 1: out and she said, Hi, my name is missus Henry.
Speaker 1: I'm your teacher. And I remember looking at her and
Speaker 1: thinking she's white, because I had never seen a white
Speaker 1: teacher before. I had recently come from an all black
Speaker 1: school where everybody looked like me until this very day
Speaker 1: that the law was being implemented, and not to mention.
Speaker 1: When I looked at her, you know, she looked exactly
Speaker 1: like the crowd outside. So I didn't I didn't really
Speaker 1: know how to receive her, you know, I didn't know
Speaker 1: what she was going to be like. Everyone outside seemed
Speaker 1: really angry. But I remember her saying, you know, come
Speaker 1: in and take a seat. And as I stood there,
Speaker 1: I looked inside of the classroom and there were nothing
Speaker 1: but empty desk. So immediately I remember thinking, well, my
Speaker 1: mom has brought me to school too early, because nobody
Speaker 1: was in the building, let alone in that empty classroom.
Speaker 1: But you know, I went in and I took a seat.
Speaker 1: My mother sat in the back of the class, and
Speaker 1: missus Henry began to teach me. And right away I
Speaker 1: liked her. She made me feel safe. I knew that
Speaker 1: she liked me just the way she behaved, and she
Speaker 1: made school fun for me. I remember leaving being excited
Speaker 1: about my first day with her, and as time went on,
Speaker 1: you know, I began to see her as just another mom,
Speaker 1: you know, my school mother, because it was always just
Speaker 1: her and I and I knew that if once I
Speaker 1: passed the crowd and got inside of the building, I
Speaker 1: knew it was going to have a great day. It
Speaker 1: was because of her. You know, she showed me her heart,
Speaker 1: and I knew that she was different. Even though she
Speaker 1: looked like the people outside, she was different. And you know,
Speaker 1: the beauty of it all is that I made a
Speaker 1: friend at six years old that I am still friends
Speaker 1: with today. You know, she's still alive and she's still
Speaker 1: my best friend. I read that missus Henry would start
Speaker 1: each day with a hug, that she would sit side
Speaker 1: by side with you in your cozy corner of the room,
Speaker 1: and because federal marshals wouldn't let you go outside for recess,
Speaker 1: she would get really creative in the classroom. Right, She'd
Speaker 1: move furniture around, and just the two of you would
Speaker 1: do jumping Jackson place because you couldn't do physical ed.
Speaker 1: It was just so moving to hear about the way
Speaker 1: that she embraced it's very complex role. Yes, we had
Speaker 1: our own little world in that room that was hours
Speaker 1: safe haven. I mean you could hear them from the windows,
Speaker 1: screaming and chanting and shouting and there were days when
Speaker 1: she would turn up and said, oh, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: music today, and she turned this little music box up.
Speaker 1: But yes, everything we did we did in that classroom.
Speaker 1: I remember the very first fieldship that I had was
Speaker 1: actually seeing my school building because they would bring me
Speaker 1: out one flight of stairs every morning and down that
Speaker 1: same flight every afternoon, so I never had a chance
Speaker 1: to see the entire school. And to you know, one
Speaker 1: day that happened and she and the federal marshals just
Speaker 1: walked me around the whole school, and that was the
Speaker 1: day that I was able to go to the cafeteria.
Speaker 1: I was excited about that. I could still smell the
Speaker 1: food cooking because they were still cooking for the other
Speaker 1: teachers or maybe for any other students that would show up.
Speaker 1: So I would smell all the food and it would
Speaker 1: remind me of what school was like at my old school,
Speaker 1: where you know, when the bell rang, we all ran
Speaker 1: to the cafeteria and had lunch together. And this school
Speaker 1: was different because that didn't happen. It was very different.
Speaker 1: And I was constantly trying to put the pieces together
Speaker 1: to figure out why this environment was so different. And
Speaker 1: did you ever ask missus Henry directly, Hey, what's going
Speaker 1: on here? Why am I the only kid in your class? No?
Speaker 1: And again I think that that goes back to the
Speaker 1: way I was raised. I do remember saying to her
Speaker 1: and Missus Henry, I hear kids. Because later in the year,
Speaker 1: there were some white parents who tried to cross that
Speaker 1: same picket line to bring their kids to school. The
Speaker 1: principal would take the kids and she would hide them
Speaker 1: so I would never see them and they would never
Speaker 1: see me. But every time I went into this coat
Speaker 1: closet to hang up my coat, I could hear them,
Speaker 1: and I would mention that to missus Henry. I would say,
Speaker 1: Missus Henry, I hear kids, and Missus Henry would just
Speaker 1: ignore me. She wouldn't say anything. I later realized that
Speaker 1: Missus Henry wasn't just ignoring me. She was going to
Speaker 1: the principle and advocating for me, saying that the laws
Speaker 1: changed and kids can be together now, but you are
Speaker 1: hiding them from Ruby. If you don't allow them to
Speaker 1: come together with Ruby, I'm gonna report you to the
Speaker 1: superintendent because the laws changed, And so they made a
Speaker 1: decision that she could take me to where the kids were,
Speaker 1: but still the kids could not come into my classroom,
Speaker 1: and you know, we were taken outside, which I was
Speaker 1: really excited about. And that only happened once or twice
Speaker 1: that year. What were your interactions like with those other
Speaker 1: kids in the short moments you had together. I remember
Speaker 1: that the first day that happened. I remember being so
Speaker 1: excited because I spent like months searching, you know, and
Speaker 1: trying to figure all of this out, and wishing every
Speaker 1: day that kids would show up. And finally when missus
Speaker 1: Henry was allowed to take me to where they were,
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, I knew I heard kids, you know,
Speaker 1: and just excited. I didn't care what they looked like.
Speaker 1: I mean, any six year old would be excited to
Speaker 1: now have an opportunity to make friends. But honestly, that
Speaker 1: was the day that everything came together for me because
Speaker 1: a little boy looked at me and he said, I
Speaker 1: can't play with you. My mom said not to play
Speaker 1: with you because you're a nigger. And I remember that
Speaker 1: to this very day because I remember looking at him
Speaker 1: and feeling like this weight lifted off my shoulders. And
Speaker 1: when I say wait, it was like months. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to piece it together. I'm trying to figure out why
Speaker 1: the school is empty, Why there's no kids that show
Speaker 1: up day after day? Why can't I have lunch in
Speaker 1: the cafeteria. So in my mind the whole time, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out what's going on. And the
Speaker 1: little boy looked at me and he told me when
Speaker 1: he said, I can't play with you, my mom said
Speaker 1: not to because you're a nigger. I then realized, so
Speaker 1: that's why there's no kids here. It's about me. It's
Speaker 1: not my girl, and this isn't college. It's about me.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
Speaker 1: of plans. Ruby Bridges was never told why she spent
Speaker 1: every day at William France Elementary School with just her teacher,
Speaker 1: Missus Henry, and no other kids, but Ruby eventually figured
Speaker 1: it out when she was allowed to interact with a
Speaker 1: few of the white kids at the school. Ruby was
Speaker 1: called a racial slur by one of the kids, and
Speaker 1: the truth of what was really going on in her
Speaker 1: school became clear to her. My first encounter with racism
Speaker 1: was with this little five or six year old boy.
Speaker 1: And even though he called me that name, I mean I,
Speaker 1: first of all, that wasn't my name. And second, I
Speaker 1: was accustomed to hearing that word whenever we would go
Speaker 1: back to Mississippi, where my grandparents were, and so I
Speaker 1: knew that it was about the color of my skin.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't angry with him because I didn't feel
Speaker 1: like and I don't know, for some reason, I didn't
Speaker 1: feel like he didn't want to play with me. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was the way he looked at me, maybe it
Speaker 1: was the way he said it. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't angry with him because I felt like he
Speaker 1: was explaining to me why he couldn't play with me.
Speaker 1: Like if my mom has said Ruby, don't play with him.
Speaker 1: He's Asian, he's Indian, he's white, he's mixed race, he's Jewish,
Speaker 1: I would not have played with him. And maybe if
Speaker 1: you asked me, I would have actually been brutally honest
Speaker 1: and say because my mom told me not to. You
Speaker 1: have this conversation with your white classmate, and you're given
Speaker 1: clarity around why your situation at school is the way
Speaker 1: it is. As you describe that, there's a freeing quality
Speaker 1: to it because suddenly Ruby's six year old brain can
Speaker 1: make sense of it. But at the same time, it's
Speaker 1: also a horrifying realization that this is what is happening.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering how you responded to that part. You're right.
Speaker 1: It was bitter and sweet that moment. You're right, it
Speaker 1: was an aha moment like now I know, and then
Speaker 1: sad because he just told me that I wasn't good enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as if there was something wrong with me. Do you
Speaker 1: remember telling your parents that night about this conversation. No,
Speaker 1: you just kept it to yourself. Yeah. It's a lot
Speaker 1: to carry, yes, yes, that is a lot to put
Speaker 1: onto a six year old. You know, it's all the
Speaker 1: mind of a child, and how I coped with it.
Speaker 1: It's an innocence, and I think, I mean not to
Speaker 1: downplay it, but I think so many people feel like
Speaker 1: it's so profound, it's so whatever, But it's it's just
Speaker 1: the innocence of a child. Yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons it is so profound
Speaker 1: is because a situation like that almost demands the innocence
Speaker 1: of a child to make it bearable, to make it
Speaker 1: something a human being can survive. And you know what,
Speaker 1: You're right, You're absolutely right. And that's why I think
Speaker 1: whether my parents understood it, what they were doing, or
Speaker 1: whether it was just a sign of the times that
Speaker 1: I grew up in where you didn't ask questions and
Speaker 1: that's the way my parents were raised. So they didn't
Speaker 1: try to switch things up and say, oh, now we're
Speaker 1: going to explain everything to a child. They were not
Speaker 1: raised that way and that was not the way they
Speaker 1: raised us. So they just did things the way they
Speaker 1: normally did and felt like there's no need to tell
Speaker 1: her anything. And yet that was what saved me, that
Speaker 1: allowed me to have this coping mechanism. But you know, afterwards,
Speaker 1: the very next year, the protesters were gone. Schools were
Speaker 1: then integrated across the city. The kids came back to
Speaker 1: the school for second grade. For me, it was like
Speaker 1: my life changed all over again, because I remember, after
Speaker 1: some a vacation running back to that classroom so excited
Speaker 1: about seeing Missus Henry. Was a new year, And the
Speaker 1: minute I got to the classroom, it was almost like
Speaker 1: somebody clapped their hands and the carriage was gone and
Speaker 1: it turned into a pumpkin, and Missus Henry wasn't standing there.
Speaker 1: The classroom did not even look like the same classroom anymore.
Speaker 1: It was a new teacher. She had put up new
Speaker 1: things in the class. It really was not my class.
Speaker 1: There were lots of kids my second grade class. There
Speaker 1: were maybe twenty twenty five kids, a few other black kids.
Speaker 1: No one knew who I was. I was then being
Speaker 1: taught by a teacher who had refused to teach me
Speaker 1: the year before, So whenever I would it was my
Speaker 1: turn to read, she would say, that's not how you
Speaker 1: pronounced that. Take a seat. And it was because I
Speaker 1: only knew how to pronounce words the way missus Henry
Speaker 1: had taught me. She had come from Boston. She had
Speaker 1: a very strong Boston accent, so I was left with
Speaker 1: her Boston accent. So I remember not really wanting to
Speaker 1: speak in second grade. It it was over and again
Speaker 1: nobody told me anything. And you know, there were times
Speaker 1: when I even wondered did I dream all of this?
Speaker 1: Was it real? I knew it was real, but it
Speaker 1: was like no one else really talked about it. It
Speaker 1: was over and pretty much I think the city didn't
Speaker 1: really want to talk about it or deal with it
Speaker 1: because it was sort of a black mark on them.
Speaker 1: No pun intended, but you know, the whole country watched
Speaker 1: how adults behaved in front of a six year old,
Speaker 1: So nobody really wanted to relive that. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: my parents really wanted to talk about it. It was
Speaker 1: too hard for them, and it really kind of had
Speaker 1: them at odds with each other for a while. And
Speaker 1: even though I had all these questions and nobody seemed
Speaker 1: to really want to talk about it, it it wasn't like
Speaker 1: I could run back to school, even in third grade,
Speaker 1: fourth grade, fifth grade, six seventh. That wasn't like I
Speaker 1: could open up my history book and learn about that
Speaker 1: incident and learn about me. So how was I going
Speaker 1: to find out about myself and this incident? And when
Speaker 1: did you find out? I was about seventeen when a
Speaker 1: reporter came to do an interview with me, and he
Speaker 1: showed me the Norman Rockwell painting And for listeners, Ruby,
Speaker 1: you're referring to the Norman Rockwall painting called The Problem
Speaker 1: We All Live With, which immortalized your first day of
Speaker 1: school and shows you as a little girl walking to
Speaker 1: school with federal marshals surrounding you. Absolutely, he showed me
Speaker 1: the Norman Rockwell painting and said, do you know that
Speaker 1: this is you? This is you? It depicts your walk
Speaker 1: and up until that moment, I didn't think anybody remembered
Speaker 1: or cared, or that it even mattered. I thought that
Speaker 1: this was an incident that just happened in my community,
Speaker 1: on my street. That's what I thought. I wasn't aware
Speaker 1: that it was so important, that it changed the face
Speaker 1: of education, and that people around the country were familiar
Speaker 1: with it enough for this very famous artist to paint
Speaker 1: this amazing painting about I did not realize that my walk,
Speaker 1: my story, was a part of a much bigger family,
Speaker 1: the civil rights family, the civil rights movement. I did
Speaker 1: not realize that until that moment. Wow, just over ten
Speaker 1: years ago, you ended up celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of
Speaker 1: your first day at William France by visiting the Obama
Speaker 1: White House and sharing in this beautiful moment with President
Speaker 1: Obama when you both looked at the Norman Rockwell painting together.
Speaker 1: Do you mind sharing how that day came to be? So?
Speaker 1: I was thinking it wouldn't be cool to have of
Speaker 1: that painting hung at the White House. I started in
Speaker 1: listening people to write letters the Norman Rockwell Museum. You know,
Speaker 1: I sit on their board. They were really excited about
Speaker 1: the idea. Missus Henry Ronan letter the governor of Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: just different people, and we wrote and said, you know,
Speaker 1: would you be willing to do this? And if any
Speaker 1: president was going to say yes, we knew it was
Speaker 1: going to be him, and he agreed, and so all
Speaker 1: of us were so thrilled. And then I did get
Speaker 1: an invitation to come and view it with him, and
Speaker 1: that was like the icing on a cake. So we
Speaker 1: went and it was a closed meeting, only about a
Speaker 1: dozen people. So the door opens and he starts to
Speaker 1: head to warn me, and everything changed, you know the
Speaker 1: fact that I felt like I was so poised and
Speaker 1: so cool about it. Everything changed because my first thought was,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, but missus Henry, he's black. There's
Speaker 1: a black man walking toward me and he is the
Speaker 1: President of the United States. That was just a whole
Speaker 1: other group of feelings. And so he walked over to me,
Speaker 1: and just as my escort explained what was going to unfold,
Speaker 1: he turned and said, President Obama, this is Ruby Bridges.
Speaker 1: And so I extended my hand and I said, mister President,
Speaker 1: it is such an honor to meet you. And when
Speaker 1: I did that, he put both hands on his hips
Speaker 1: and he looked at me. He said, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: I'm getting a hug, and he's like threw his arms
Speaker 1: around me, and he leaned over on my shoulder and
Speaker 1: he whispered in my ear and he said, I cannot
Speaker 1: begin to tell you what an honor it is to
Speaker 1: welcome you into this White House. And when he was
Speaker 1: whispering that in my ear, my head was on his shoulder,
Speaker 1: and I looked around the room, and those twelve people
Speaker 1: that were in the room, they all started to tear
Speaker 1: up and they were crying. And then when we went
Speaker 1: into his office and he started showing me around, and
Speaker 1: then finally there we were standing in front of the painting.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, it's fair to say that if
Speaker 1: it had not been for you, all probably wouldn't be
Speaker 1: standing here to day. And that's when it hit me
Speaker 1: that this moment wasn't really about me and him. It
Speaker 1: was about the time between us, all of the sacrifices
Speaker 1: and lives lost, all those people that died, the struggle,
Speaker 1: the whole movement, both black and white. That's what it was.
Speaker 1: Ruby's journey is far from over. She actively travels the
Speaker 1: world sharing her story. She helps run the Ruby Bridges Foundation,
Speaker 1: which organizes a yearly walk to School day to commemorate
Speaker 1: her first steps and the movement to end racism in
Speaker 1: our communities. Ruby is also the author of several books.
Speaker 1: Her latest is a children's book called I Am Ruby Bridges. Hey,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening. Join me next week when
Speaker 1: we hear from author Dan Pink on the science of regret.
Speaker 1: Dan argues that we should transform our relationship to this
Speaker 1: often misunderstood emotion. The thing about regret is that regret
Speaker 1: can clarify what we value and instruct us on how
Speaker 1: to do better. And people like that. But it comes
Speaker 1: with discomfort. It comes with some amount of pain, and
Speaker 1: people don't like that. But that's not the deal. It's
Speaker 1: a package deal. You got to have both. And arguably
Speaker 1: I think that pain and discomfort is the source of
Speaker 1: the clarification and the instruction. A Slight Change of Plans
Speaker 1: is created written an executive produce by me Maya Schunker.
Speaker 1: The Slight Change Family includes our senior producer Tyler Greene,
Speaker 1: our producer and fact checker Emily Rosteck, our editors Kate Parkinson,
Speaker 1: Morgan and Jen Guera, and our sound engineers Ben holliday
Speaker 1: In Andrew Vastola, Louis Skara wrote our delightful theme song
Speaker 1: and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big
Speaker 1: thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special
Speaker 1: thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker See you
Speaker 1: next week. My three nieces came over this weekend and
Speaker 1: I had the PDF of your I Am Ruby Bridges
Speaker 1: book and I was like, y'all are in for a treat.
Speaker 1: Guess who I'm interviewing on Monday. And my niece vest
Speaker 1: were just freaked out. She was like, oh, Ruby Bridges,
Speaker 1: You're going to meet her. So anyway, I just wanted
Speaker 1: you to know it led to a lot of joy
Speaker 1: in the Schunker family. Well, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me, and that just lifts my spirits today, so
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it.