ruby

Early Life. Ruby Nell Bridges was born on September 8, 1954, in Tylertown, Mississippi. She grew up on the farm her parents and grandparents sharecropped in Mississippi. When she was four years old, her parents, Abon and Lucille Bridges, moved to New Orleans, hoping for a better life in a bigger city.

Bridges was born during the middle of the Civil Rights Movement. Brown v. Board of Education was decided three months and twenty-two days before Bridges' birth.[8] The court ruling declared the process of separating schools for black children and white children unconstitutional. Though the Brown v. Board of Education decision was finalized in 1954, southern states were extremely resistant to the decision that they must integrate for the six following years.

Many white people did not want schools to be integrated and, though it was a federal ruling, state governments were not doing their part in enforcing the new laws. In 1957, federal troops were ordered to Little Rock, Arkansas, to escort the Little Rock Nine students in combating violence that occurred as a result of the decision.[8] Under significant pressure from the federal government, the Orleans Parish School Board administered an entrance exam to students at Bridges' school with the intention of keeping black children out of white schools.