Look at these documents about the painting, context and details : my presentation
See : segregation, the Civil Rights Movement, Travels with Charley, Martin Luther King Jr, Ruby Bridges returns to school
READ THE TRANSCRIPT of the Ruby Bridges video below :
3811 Galvez street, another empty building ravaged by Katrina but spared the wrecking ball, because 50 years ago, History whistled through these windows.
Archives : “A (?) break in the colour line : A New Orleans girl goes to school.”
Now 56, the memories flow easily for Ruby Bridges,the little girl who integrated William Frantz school protected by a team of Federal Marshals.
(….) crowd yelling
Ruby Bridges : “There was lots of people outside and they were screaming and shouting at the police officers but I thought it was Mardi-Gras, you know, I didn’t actually know that all of that was there because of me.”
Her parents were committed to challenging Jim Crow law and made the uneasy decision of sending their child daily into the teeth of a hate-filled crowd.
R.B. : “There were days when they would come and they would bring a baby’s coffin and inside this baby’s coffin was a black doll and I used to have nightmares about the coffin.”
“We don’t want any …beep in this school”crowd yelling.
Resistance was ugly and downtown protest turned violent. White parents scurried to take their children out of the newly ntegrated schools.”
(….) crowd yelling
Ruby Bridges : “They went into every classroom and they pulled out every child.”
But the next day, one family took a stand.
Lloyd Foreman : “I simply want the privilege of taking my child to school …”
34 year- old Methodist minister Lloyd Foreman was the first to crack that school boycott : he took his five- year -old daughter Pam and without Federal protection, walked right through that same angry mob.Days later, a handful of other parents followed Foreman’s lead and the protest began to fade.
(…) Pam and Ruby greeting eachother.
Now for the first time in 50 years, Ruby and Pam reunited at Frantz school.
Pam Foreman : “Daddy always called it the longest walk because in my case, our white race was against us, I mean we had bomb threats, we
had to move out of the house, it was terrible.”
Journalist : “Why do you think your father stood his ground in face of all of that ? “
Pam Foreman “Because of his faith in God and his beliefs that every child, regardless of their race, deserved a white-term education.”
Pam and Ruby “Is that your father ?” “yes, that’s Dad”.
Reliving their separate, but equally painful memories ( Pam’s father died in 2005) the two former schoolmates say times have changed but the issue remains : by the 1980s Frantz had become nearly all black. Ruby hopes that one day, the school can live up to its legacy.
“I entered this building to integrate the school. If we are going to get past those racial differences it’s gonna come from our kids but they have to be together to do that.
Michelle Miller CBS News, New Orleans
