her first-grade teacher. Though it was a frightening, turbulent time, Mrs. Henry only recalls the joy she experienced that year. “It was so wonderful to have a little student like Ruby that it really made it a pleasure,” Mrs. Henry told Oprah in 1996. “We had a grand time together, side-by-side. Just to two of us spent the year together.”
While protestors rioted across the city, Mrs. Henry walked into her classroom every day, ready to teach. “She actually taught me the lesson that I say Dr. King taught all of us,” Ruby says. “And even though she was white and she looked exactly like the people outside the school, she showed me her heart.”
Ruby now promotes the values of tolerance and respect with her organization, Ruby Bridges Foundation.
“Everybody knows these are very trying times for us in this country,” she said in a 2016 interview with The Washington Post. “I believe that we have to come together and we have to rely on the goodness of each other. Faith will help us get through this, just as it did before.”