Where Is Ruby Bridges Now? All About Her Life 65 Years After Famously Desegregating an All-White Elementary School at Age 6
- - Where Is Ruby Bridges Now? All About Her Life 65 Years After Famously Desegregating an All-White Elementary School at Age 6
Lynsey EidellNovember 14, 2025 at 5:30 PM
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AP Photo ; Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty
U.S. Deputy Marshals escort 6-year-old Ruby Bridges from William Frantz Elementary School in November 1960 in New Orleans, Louisiana ; Ruby Bridges on NBC's Today show on January 22, 2024. -
Ruby Bridges was the first Black student to enter a formerly all-White school in New Orleans
She faced angry White mobs, and only one White teacher agreed to educate her
Sixty-five years later, Ruby continues to be an activist
On Nov. 14, 1960, when Ruby Bridges was just 6 years old, she unknowingly became an icon for the civil rights movement that was sweeping the country.
The first grader made history when she became the first Black child to integrate into an all-White elementary school in the American South. As Ruby walked into New Orleans’ William Frantz Elementary School on Nov. 14, 1960, accompanied by her mother Lucille and protected by federal marshals, she faced an angry White mob who threw food at her and hurled racial slurs.
“My parents didn’t try to explain it to me,” Ruby shared with PEOPLE in 2020. Instead, all she remembers hearing was, “You’re going to a new school today and you better behave.”
What Ruby also did not realize at the time was the powerful impact her and her parents’ actions would have across the country — and for years to come.
“In my tiny mind I thought this was just something that happened on my street and in my community,” she said. “I didn’t realize that it was a part of a much broader movement.”
In the decades since Ruby first bravely walked up the steps of William Frantz Elementary School, she has continued to carry the torch for the civil rights movement — as an activist, author and public speaker.
On the 65th anniversary of her courageous integration into an all-White school, here is a look back on how Ruby Bridges broke barriers as a child — and everything to know about where the activist is today.
Who is Ruby Bridges?
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Ruby Nell Bridges.
Born Sept. 8, 1954, Ruby is the oldest of eight children born to the late Abon and Lucille Bridges, according to the National Women’s History Museum. The same year Ruby was born, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its historic ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case — and declared segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional.
Ruby and her family resided in Tylertown, Miss., before Abon, a mechanic, and Lucille, a housekeeper, decided to move the family to New Orleans in 1956. They relocated in pursuit of better opportunities, particularly in terms of jobs and education.
“We decided to leave so that we could make it better,” Lucille said in a 2016 interview, per The New York Times. “I wanted it better for my kids than it was for us.”
Fueling Abon and Lucille’s drive was the fact that they both had to abandon their education at a young age. As the children of sharecroppers, Ruby’s parents had to leave school to help their parents in the fields.
“They were not allowed to go to school every day,” Ruby told The Guardian in 2021. “Neither one of them had a formal education. If it was time for them to get the crops in, or to work, school was a luxury; that was something they couldn’t do. So they really wanted opportunities for their children that they were not allowed to have.”
What happened to Ruby Bridges when she was 6?
Anonymous/AP/Shutterstock U.S. Deputy Marshals escort six-year-old Ruby Bridges from William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Though the Brown v. Board of Education ruling was handed down in 1954, schools in Louisiana had been slow to comply and, six years later, segregation was still rampant. As a result, in 1960, Federal Judge James Skelly Wright ordered Louisiana schools to begin the integration process — or face potential closure.
In an effort to further limit integration, school administrators decided to only allow in Black students who passed an exam of their creation. Then 6-year-old Ruby was one of only five Black children to pass, and she was assigned to the all-White William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, according to The New York Times.
“I’ve been told that it was set up so that kids would have a hard time passing,” Ruby wrote in her 1999 book Through My Eyes, per The Washington Post. “If all the Black children had failed, the White school board might have had a way to keep the schools segregated for a while longer.”
But with Judge Wright’s order and Ruby’s exam results on their side, the NAACP requested that Ruby be allowed to attend William Frantz. Though Abon was hesitant to send his daughter to the all-White school due to safety concerns, Lucille pushed for the opportunity. So, on Nov. 14, 1960, 6-year-old Ruby became the first Black student to attend an all-White elementary school in the south.
When Ruby and her mother arrived for her first day of school at William Frantz, they were greeted by mobs of angry protestors who screamed racial slurs and threw eggs and tomatoes. Ruby and Lucille were escorted and protected by armed U.S. marshals who walked the first grader up to the school’s doors. White parents removed their children from the school and all but one teacher refused to educate Ruby.
The student, however, was unaware that the crowds of people were there because of her presence at the school. Ruby told PEOPLE in 2020 she believed she had come across a crowd celebrating Mardi Gras.
“For me, being 6 years old, I really wasn’t aware of what was going on,” she told NPR in 2010. “I mean the only thing that I was ever told by my parents that I was going to attend a new school and that I should behave.”
In a separate interview with Meet the Press in 2024, she added, “What protected me was the innocence of a child.”
What happened to Ruby Bridges in William Frantz Elementary School?
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Ruby Bridges is escorted by US Federal Marshals into William Frantz elementary school on November 28, 1960 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Ruby’s first year at William Frantz didn’t get any easier after that first day. She had to be escorted by federal marshals every day, as the protestors continued berating her. All of the White students were withdrawn from her first-grade class by their parents, and every teacher refused to take Ruby on as a student, with the exception of Barbara Henry, who had just moved to New Orleans from Boston. For the first year, Henry taught Ruby alone in the classroom.
“It was just the two of us for the entire year,” Ruby wrote in a 2010 essay for The Washington Post. “She never missed a day, and neither did I.”
There were also threats to Ruby’s physical safety: One protester outside of the school displayed a baby’s coffin containing a Black doll, while another woman threatened to poison her, according to New Orleans Magazine. As a result, Ruby could only eat food that was prepared at home.
“I used to have nightmares about the box,” Ruby told NPR about seeing the coffin outside of her school. “Those are the days that I distinctly remember being really, really frightened.”
The effects of Ruby integrating into the New Orleans elementary school extended to her family, as well. Her father lost his job, while local grocery stores refused to sell to her mother. Her grandparents back in Mississippi were also evicted from the farm where they’d lived and worked for 25 years.
“I didn’t know how bad things would get,” Lucille said, per The Washington Post.
By the time Ruby entered second grade, however, the protestors had dissipated and some of her peers returned to the classroom. Ruby attended William Frantz through sixth grade — and each year, more and more Black students enrolled, thanks to the path she forged.
“Every fall, more black students joined me,” Ruby wrote in The Washington Post. “By the time I left, I seem to recall that William Frantz was about evenly integrated. After the first year, no one really discussed it.”
What did Ruby Bridges do after grade school?
Bettmann/Getty
Ruby Bridges.
After her time at William Frantz, Ruby went on to attend and graduate from an integrated high school in New Orleans. Following graduation, she became a travel agent for American Express, a job she held for 15 years.
“I was really more focused on how to get out of Louisiana,” Ruby told The Guardian about her initial career plans. “I knew that there was something more than what I was exposed to right there in my community.”
Ruby married Malcolm Hall in 1984, and the couple have four sons together.
Where is Ruby Bridges today?
Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty
Ruby Bridges on NBC's Today show on January 22, 2024.
Though Ruby’s role as a civil rights icon began when she was just a child, the mother of four embarked on activism work of her own as an adult after a family tragedy. After her brother was murdered in 1993, Ruby and her family returned to New Orleans so that she could care for her brother’s four daughters — who also attended William Frantz Elementary School.
“I ended up back at Frantz, taking his daughters to school because they lived in the same neighborhood,” Bridges told PEOPLE in 2020. “Once I got inside, I was so disappointed to see that the school was really deteriorating. I felt like, ‘My goodness, all the sacrifices that were made here in this building — it’s just going to waste.’ ”
As a result, Ruby launched the Ruby Bridges Foundation in 1999, with the aim of promoting tolerance through education. To this day, she primarily works with kids, speaking at schools across the country with the hope of stopping racism before it ever starts.
“We all know that babies come into the world with a very unique gift, and that is a clear heart,” she said. “Racism is a grown-up disease. Let’s stop using our kids to spread it.”
Another tragic loss — the shooting death of her oldest son, Craig, in 2005 — only fueled Ruby to work harder at creating positive change in the world.
Ruby also spreads her message through her writing. As of 2022, she has written four books: the 1999 memoir Through Her Eyes, 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story, 2020’s This Is Your Time (which was released the same day her mother Lucille died) and 2022’s I Am Ruby Bridges: How One Six-Year-Old Girl's March to School Changed the World.
“All of us can do something,” Ruby said about her activism. “It doesn’t have to be amazing. It’s about taking your gift and using it for good.”
How has Ruby Bridges’ impact been honored?
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Ruby Bridges at Glamour's 2017 Women of The Year Awards on November 13, 2017 in Brooklyn, New York.
Ruby’s story hasn’t just been told through her published writings, it has also been memorialized in works of art, statues and films.
Ruby’s identity was initially kept anonymous to protect her safety — but her act of courage eventually gained national attention. In 1962, John Steinbeck wrote about how she blazed past the screaming protestors in his book Travels with Charley.
In 1964, Norman Rockwell debuted his iconic painting of Ruby walking bravely into school, titled “The Problem We All Live With.” The work of art would later hang in the White House during President Barack Obama’s first term, according to The Washington Post.
Her story was also the subject of a 1998 Disney film titled Ruby Bridges, and there is a statue in her honor in the courtyard of William Frantz Elementary School.
“I think kids will look at it and think to themselves, ‘I can do something great too,’ ” Ruby said at the statue’s unveiling in 2014. “Kids can do anything, and I want them to be able to see themselves in the statue. Hopefully that will remind [them that they] can change the world.”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
