Forty-six years ago, one brave little girl changed the U.S. public school system. A mere six years old at the time, Ruby Bridges attended a kindergarten far from her home while living just blocks away from an all-white school New Orleans, Louisiana.

What she didn’t know at the time was that the U.S. Supreme Court had planned for her: to become the first African American child to desegregate an elementary school. Of course, local lawmakers ensured that Ruby had plenty of hurdles to pass first, including a rigorous testing designed to prevent most kids from passing. But Ruby did, and was enrolled in William Frantz Elementary school, a school just blocks from her home.

Ruby did not start first grade in the fall with the rest of the other first graders at William Frantz. Lawmakers in Baton Rouge saw to that. Time and again they sought to delay her admission, if not outright prevent it. But thanks to the committment of a Federal judge they did not succeed. Ruby, along with four other black children, were to be the beginning of equal educational opportunity in Louisiana.

U.S. Marshalls were called in to protect the children from those opposed to desegregation. One girl’s parents decided the threat was too great and sent her to the all-black school she’d been attending. The remaining three children went together to McDonogh Elementary, leaving Ruby to attend William Frantz all by herself.

And, in fact, she was all by herself in the first grade. White parents, enraged at the change, showed up at the school and dragged their children from class. Protestors rallied outside the school shouting racial epithets and singing songs in praise of segregation. Ruby sat alone, day after day, as the only child in class. At lunch time, Ruby was not allowed to eat in the cafeteria. Instead, U.S. Marshalls sat outside the classroom where she ate her peanut butter sandwiches in solitude. Eventually, her teacher, Mrs. Henry, realized that Ruby was not eating her lunch at all: she was hiding the scraps in the classroom in the hopes that she’d be allowed to eat with the other children in the “magical place,” as she came to think of the cafeteria. Eventually, Mrs. Henry began to eat her own lunch with Ruby in the classroom, and the relationship that grew between the two is one that Ruby thought would last forever.

By the end of the school year, Ruby was no longer the only student in class. As with most protests and anger fueled by ignorance and bereft of moral justice, the outrage over desgregation at William Frantz weakened. White parents began sending their children to school again, and New Orleans itself slowly began to change. One brave little girl had changed a city - and a school system - forever.

Happy Birthday, Ruby Bridges Hall. May there be many more birthdays ahead for you, and many more brave children to follow in your footsteps.

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