[ثلجَة]

Recent Contributions

In 1993, Ruby Bridges' youngest brother, Malcolm Bridges, was murdered in a drug-related killing. For a time, Ruby looked after Malcolm's four children, who attended William Frantz School. She began to volunteer at the school three days a week and soon became a parent-community liaison. The coincidence of all this, to have her brother's death bring her back to her elementary school where so much had taken place, didn't escape Ruby, but she wasn't sure why all this happened. In 1995, she got her answer. Robert Coles, Bridges' child psychologist, published a children's book on his time with her, entitled The Story of Ruby Bridges. Soon after, Barbara Henry, her teacher that first year at Frantz School, contacted Bridges and they were reunited on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
With Bridges' experience as liaison at the school, and her reconnection with influential people in her past, she began to see a need for bringing parents back into the schools to take a more active role in their children's education. In 1999, Bridges formed the Ruby Bridges Foundation, headquartered in New Orleans. The foundation promotes the values of tolerance, respect, and appreciation of all differences. Through education and inspiration, the foundation seeks to end racism and prejudice. As its motto goes, "Racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using our children to spread it." In 2007, the Children's Museum of Indianapolis unveiled a new exhibition documenting Bridges' life, along with the lives of Anne Frank and Ryan White.