Inspiring six year old, taken to school by United States Marshals in New Orleans, when KKK conspired, contracted and revolted against the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. Thanks to President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson and our federal law enforcement and federal ours, our Nation's schools were desegregated. Thank God! From Florida Phoenix:
Ruby Bridges, civil rights icon, tells Kansas students to reject racist line of thought
‘You cannot believe that you can only trust people who look like you’
Ruby Bridges, a fixture of the American civil rights movement, visited Topeka on Nov. 14, 2024, to commemorate Kansas’ second annual Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day. (Anna Kaminski/Kansas Reflector)
Ruby Bridges, a civil rights icon known for walking among the first group of students to desegregate New Orleans public schools in 1960, on Thursday told an auditorium full of Kansas students, “You cannot believe that you can only trust people who look like you.”
Bridges addressed more than 1,000 people at Washburn University’s White Concert Hall in Topeka to celebrate Nov. 14 as Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day after a group of students invited her in a video to visit.
She was accompanied on stage by three Black legislators — Rep. Valdenia Winn, Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau and Rep. Barbara Ballard — along with Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, newly elected Kansas State Board of Education member Beryl New and Brown v. Board National Park superintendent Jim Williams. Kelly honored Bridges with a proclamation, declaring Nov. 14 Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day for the second consecutive year.
Bridges told the story of her six-year-old self, when she was the first Black student to walk into the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, escorted by federal marshals sent by then-President John F. Kennedy.
“What really protected me was the innocence of a child,” she said.
She told Kansas students that on her second day of school, she was met with an empty classroom. She thought her mother took her to school too early.
“Indeed, we were too early,” she said. “Years too early.”
Bridges was born just three months after the Brown v. Board decision, which celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2024. In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court found racial segregation of public schools to be unconstitutional.
Ballard, a Lawrence Democrat, told Kansas Reflector that being among students Thursday reminded her of the mandate embedded within the Kansas Constitution for adequate and equitable education. Republican lawmakers have a long history of threatening funding for Kansas public schools, even though courts routinely uphold the constitutional mandate.
“Anytime you’re taking money from education to give to vouchers or to give to this or to give to that, there’s only one pot of money,” Ballard said.
It’s up to legislators, she said, to honor the mandate within the Constitution to ensure K-12 education is funded and money is not taken for other purposes.
Winn, a Kansas City Democrat, expressed on stage her distaste for the select actions of her fellow lawmakers, listing off such events as Rep. Kristey Williams, an Augusta Republican, claiming in 2021 that critical race theory shames white girls. Critical race theory, which Williams often misconstrued, examines the way racial bias is part of social, legal and economic systems on the basis that those systems were initially created by and for white people.
Now 70 years old, Bridges said she spends time telling her story, and she is involved at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. Bridges is also the author of several autobiographical books and advocates against book banning. All of her own books have been banned at one time or another, she said.
As a child, she looked to history books for answers but couldn’t find them.
“It was like I dreamed it,” she said. “And it haunted me for a very long time.”
Bridges emphasized the importance of true records of history, rather than accounts that ignore entire events and perspectives.
Racism, Bridges said, is a tool used to divide people.
“Racism makes you think that you can only trust people that look like you,” Bridges said. “That’s the trick. The truth of the matter is, not one person in this room — in this country — can think that you can only trust your own kind.”
This story first appeared in the Kansas Reflector, a partner of the nonprofit States Newsroom, which includes the Florida Phoenix.
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