Meet Ruby Bridges.
At 6 years old, she was the first Black child to attend an all-White elementary school in the south.
For her to attend school her first day, men with guns had to make way through a crowd of grown men and women screaming “nigger”, threatening her life and waving confederate flags.
Nearly all the teachers abandoned the school except for one. In her classroom, all her classmates abandoned the class refusing to sit with the 6 yr old.
For the entire school year, Ruby went to school to a classroom that was just her and the one teacher that didn't refuse her. She wouldn't eat any food that wasn’t pre-packaged and sealed because White protestors frequently threatened to poison her like a rat.
Ruby is only 65 years old today, younger than most of your parents.
If you think America doesn’t have dramatic and urgent work to do on racial equity, you still have blinders on.
"On the morning of November 14, 1960, federal marshals drove Bridges and her mother five blocks to her new school. While in the car, one of the men explained that when they arrived at the school, two marshals would walk in front of Bridges and two would be behind her.
When Bridges and the federal marshals arrived at the school, large crowds of people were gathered in front yelling and throwing objects. There were barricades set up, and policemen were everywhere. Bridges, in her innocence, first believed it was like a Mardi Gras celebration.
When she entered the school under the protection of the federal marshals, she was immediately escorted to the principal's office and spent the entire day there.
Only one teacher, Barbara Henry, agreed to teach Bridges. She was from Boston and a new teacher to the school.
"Mrs. Henry," as Bridges would call her even as an adult, greeted her with open arms. Bridges was the only student in Henry's class because parents pulled or threatened to pull their children from Bridges' class and send them to other schools.
For a full year, Henry and Bridges sat side by side at two desks, working on Bridges' lessons. Henry was loving and supportive of Bridges, helping her not only with her studies but also with the difficult experience of being ostracized.
Bridges' first few weeks at Frantz School were not easy ones. Several times she was confronted with blatant racism in full view of her federal escorts.
On her second day of school, a woman threatened to poison her. After this, the federal marshals allowed her to only eat food from home. On another day, she was "greeted" by a woman displaying a black doll in a wooden coffin."
MORE HERE
16 comments:
Ruby Bridges got the opportunity to attend public school because of the SCOTUS decision in Brown v Topeka. Conservative, Civil War supporting white southerners, like George Wallace and Strom Thurmond railed against that decision.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, said you could not fire somebody from a job just because they are gay or trangender.
The 3 dissenting judges, Alito, Kavanaugh and Thomas in a written opinion, did not argue the rightness, or wrongness of whether or not an employer should have the ability to fire someone based on their sexuality. Instead, they argued that the decision should be addressed by Congress, not the courts. That is the same argument the southern conservatives used in 1954 to argue against integrating public schools.
It is also the same reason both Alito and Kavanaugh refused to affirm Brown v Topeka in their confirmation hearings.
Make no mistake. We are still in this battle. As long as their are obstructionist Senators and Congressmen, like Mitch McConnell and Matt Gaetz, we will never be able to move forward. They, and their ilk, are the enablers of Supreme Court justices who would allow discrimination to take place when they could decide against it, simply because racists are unwilling to legislate fair laws for fears of losing their electoral base.
Well said, Dave.
As a mother and grandmother, I can't stop looking at how tiny and vulnerable that child was. And yet she absorbed enormous amounts of hate and violence from the crowds that gethered that day.
Where was the natural instinct to protect the young and vulnerable in the people who screamed and jeered at her? Hate is such a powerful emotion that apparently it overrode an adult's natural instict to protect the innocent and helpless.
I've added more to the story in the post.
This is possibly going to offend, but I always speak my mind as I see/observe reality. Humans remain even today a tribal race. Generally speaking they will stay close to home and are instinctively suspicious of outsiders or those of a different color or culture. Another way to put it us, people fear that which they don't understand. Wether it be honest or willful misunderstanding.
Yes Dave we are still in this battle. IMO it will at least another couple generations before real change will become a part of a more understanting and accepting American society. IE not until the baby boomers and the following generation ALL die off.
RN, speaking your truth is not offensive. I agree that we humans are tribal, but we also have the ability to overcome tribalism in favor of humanism.
Yes we do. But I question if it is possible for all of the racists and white supremacists to overcome that which has been drilled into these peoples heads since birth. I really do think it will some time before we become a truly color blind society. Probably the death of the baby boomers and the next.
I hope I am wrong.
RN, I so agree that "speaking your mind" is important and I was with you until your final statement about real change not happening "...until the baby boomers and the following generation ALL die off". Blanket condemnation (witness your all-caps flourishing of the word "ALL") of members of entire generations is not constructive and only helps perpetuate the societal divisions you so rightly deplore.
Speaking your mind is fine but if someone disagrees with your opinion than you are shut down. It is very difficult to have a meaningful discussion with someone of a different opinion. Now we are erasing our history instead of discussing it. Confederate generals are part of our history but we want to erase it. Democrats were responsible for Jim Crowe but now their not. When we disagree some just change the narrative so it agrees with their opinion and masks the other persons.
The situation will not change until we are willing to communicate and discuss our opinions. I was raised by parents who believed everyone was different but everyone was entitled to live their lives as they please. Raised in the South I saw firsthand overt racism but rose above that because that is the way I was brought up. Does racism exist, sure but it exists in all races. Live around Native Americans and Mexicans and see how they are discriminated against and not just by whites.
Try to stick something down someones throat and they will cough, help them swallow it and they will accept it. Now both sides are trying to shove their ideals down our throats and we are coughing.
We need leadership in this country and a bunch of old, white politicians are not the answer. The black community needs leadership and the self promoters are not the answer.
SKUDRUNNER: "Now we are erasing our history instead of discussing it. Confederate generals are part of our history but we want to erase it."
No. Do you read anything about the Civil War? None of the Confederate generals are left out of the history books. But erecting monuments to them is insane.
Many German officers who fought the allies were brilliant tacticians and are in the history books about WWII. BUT WE DON'T PUT UP MONUMENTS HONORING THEM! Not even Germany does such foolish things.
I've said that those Confederate generals who committed treason against the United States should be remember in museums and the history books, not as venerated military men who fought against their own country.
Do you understand that? Can you see the rationale in that?
SKUDRUNNER: "Democrats were responsible for Jim Crowe but now their not."
Where are you getting your information? This is a whine, not an historical fact. The Democratic Party of the old South did institute Jim Crow laws, but that Democratic Party changed to the Dixiecrats once they saw the federal government start to move toward integration, and then when a DEMOCRATIC POTUS, LBJ, passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, those Southern Democrats left the party for good and became Republicans.
But what those Southern Democrats, Dixiecrats, and then Republicans ALWAYS WERE: Southerners.
SKUDRUNNER: "Raised in the South I saw firsthand overt racism but rose above that because that is the way I was brought up. Does racism exist, sure but it exists in all races. Live around Native Americans and Mexicans and see how they are discriminated against and not just by whites."
Do you acknowledge that America has a police brutality problem and that SOME cops commit extra-judicial killings against black men and women? That they do the same to other nationalities and races is beside the point. The problem is with those cops who commit these atrocities and get away with them. That's not justice, it's vigilantism, and that's illegal. That has to stop.
I was raised in the north. In the 50s, I lived in a city close to Boston and went to grammar school with black boys and girls. There were never crowds of people threatening to kill those children as they entered our school. Now that's not to say the North is blameless when it comes to racism, it is NOT. But our problems, bad as they were and still are, were NOT codified into law, as the Jim Crow laws were, so white southerners had the backing of the judicial system to terrorize southern blacks, and those southern blacks had no recourse to the judicial system for justice. None. Over generations, that would tend to foment rage, anger, and all sorts of social disparaties. This is what is meant by "systemic racism."
It exists in America, all over America.
SKUDRUNNER: "Now both sides are trying to shove their ideals down our throats and we are coughing."
What "ideals" do you speak of? Ideals by definition are good things. I don't know your meaning here.
Also, stop talking about “restoring trust” between Black people and police. When, exactly, did that trust exist in the first place? When they were the slave patrol? When they watched as people were lynched? When they put the dogs on KIDS in the 60’s? When they shot Tamir Rice?!!!
Skud... no one wants to erase history. We want to experience and learn about it with context.
The symbols, brutality and racism of that time period should never be forgotten, but they also should not be venerated. Just like Nazi symbols in Germany should not, and are not venerated. I am sure there are people in Germany who would want those symbols to still be front and center, in public and might even want statues to Adolph Hitler in city squares.
Your belief, and that of many conservatives and southerners would have us believe that is a good thing.
Maybe we are just too different.
Because a lot of us don't think celebrating the images of ppl who betrayed the US and chose to leave the Union, is a good thing. By all means we should teach the history of that era in our schools and museums, but what country honors the worst among them, the enemies of the people?
Anon, your point is WELL taken. You are right. I did not mean to imply all members were part of the problem. Thay are NOT. I used the word all inappropriately in this case. I meant that until all those who are part of the problem. Thank you for pointing that out. I need to do a better job of expressing what I mean. Thanks again.
RN, I'm guilty at times of generalizations, too. But I also have been reading you for many years, so I also know that, like me, you may have written that in haste. I know you well enough to understand you don't believe anything about ALL cultures, races, etc.
This may clarify some issues skudrunner has about renaming military bases.
This is a black law clerk replying to Judge Silberman's negative view of renaming military bases that are named for Confederate generals.:
"In your message, you talked about your ancestors, one that fought for the confederacy and one that fought for the Union. This seems to be a true example of a house divided. However, it is very clear what the Confederacy stood for. In 1861, at the Virginia secession convention, Henry L. Benning (for whom Fort Benning is named) in explaining the reasoning for Georgia’s decision to secede from the United States stated, “[it] was a conviction … that a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery…[I]t is probable that the white race, being superior in every respect, may push the other back.” Unfortunately, in this scenario, no matter how bravely your uncle fought for the Confederacy, the foundation of his fight was a decision that he agreed more with the ideals of the Confederacy, than he did with those of the Union. And in the end, he chose the losing side of history.
"Finally, I will note that the current movement to rename Government owned facilities is in line with your previous opinions on the importance of names and what they represent. In 2005, you publicly advocated for the removal of J. Edgar Hoover’s name from the FBI Building due to the problematic material you came across in your review of his FBI files after his death. You equated it to the Defense Department being named for Aaron Burr. In view of your opinion of J. Edgar Hoover’s history and your advocacy for renaming the FBI building because of the prominence it provides Hoover’s legacy, it is very strange that you would be against renaming our military facilities, since the legacy of the Confederacy represents the same thing. This moment of confronting our nation’s racial history is too big to be disregarded based on familial ties."
Shaw no matter how you slice it Democrats were responsible for Jim Crowe. They were democrats when they signed it therefore they were democrats.
Def: Ideal, example, model refer to something considered as a standard to strive toward or something considered worthy of imitation.
I don't know what you are confused about ideals because they are different for different people. Your ideal situation is government control mine is personal responsibility. Rosie Odonnell wanted to shove her being gay down everyone's throats because you had to accept it. Ellen came out and said she was gay and let people make up their minds.
For some it is the QUESTION, what is ethically and morally RIGHT. Those folks, like Shaw and millions upon millions of others, fully understand WHY doing right is important.
For others it's more about ME, and, what I LIKE is right simply because I THINK it is because I WANT it to be. Even when it isn't.
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