55 Ruby Bridges Quotes About Life, Courage and Equality

On November 14, 1960, Ruby Bridges began her first day of school at William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana. What's historic about this day is that she was flanked by U.S. federal marshals because she was among a group of African-American students selected to attend the school because it was being desegregated. Bridges was only 6 years old when she started at this formerly all-white school. Ruby Bridges’ quotes reflect her resilience, bravery and fight for equality.

To give you some insight into what Bridges had to endure, she was escorted every day by federal marshals and had to face protestors spewing racist remarks and threats on her way into the school, along with objects being thrown at her. Her first day was spent in the principal’s office because angry parents protested the school integration. For nearly a year, she was taught in a vacant classroom by her teacher, Barbara Henry.

Her morning experience was depicted in the 1963 Normal Rockwell’s painting, The Problem We All Live With, where it shows Bridges between four U.S. federal marshals and a racist term spray-painted on the wall behind them. Today, the iconic historical figure promotes unity and inspires future generations through her Ruby Bridges Foundation. These 55 impactful words and quotes from Ruby Bridges remind us to stand up for racial injustice and teach our children about love and human dignity.

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55 Ruby Bridges Quotes

1. “Schools should be diverse if we are to get past racial differences.”

2. “You cannot look at a person and tell whether they're good or bad.”

3. “Don't follow the path. Go where there is no path and begin the trail. When you start a new trail equipped with courage, strength and conviction, the only thing that can stop you is you!”

4. “What I do remember about first grade and that year was that it was very lonely. I didn't have any friends, and I wasn't allowed to go to the cafeteria or play on the playground. What bothered me most was the loneliness in school every day.”

5. “The greatest lesson I learned that year in Mrs. Henry's class was the lesson Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to teach us all: Never judge people by the color of their skin. God makes each of us unique in ways that go much deeper.”

6. “That first morning I remember mom saying as I got dressed in my new outfit, ‘Now, I want you to behave yourself today, Ruby, and don’t be afraid. There might be a lot of people outside this new school, but I’ll be with you.’”

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7. "Each and every one of us is born with a clean heart. Our babies know nothing about hate or racism."

8. "Racism is a grown-up disease, and we must stop using our children to spread it."

9. “I've seen schools in Detroit where the windows are broken, where there's no heat, and children are sitting with their coats on in class in the middle of a snowstorm. I've also seen schools in California with Olympic-sized swimming pools and cafeterias like five-star restaurants.”

10. “A lot of my strength came from my upbringing.”

11. “We as African Americans knew that if we wanted to see change, we had to step up to the plate and make that change ourselves. Not everyone comes to that realization in their lives, but thank God Linda Brown's father felt that way.”

12. “We may not all be equally guilty. But we are all equally responsible for building a decent and just society.”

13. “I remember the first time seeing myself on TV when my family was watching the documentary ‘Eyes on the Prize’ for the first time. There were pictures of people going up the school stairs, and Mom said, ‘Oh, that’s you!’ I said, ‘I can’t believe this. This is important.’”

14. “Evil looks like you and I. I know what evil looks like, and I know that it comes in all shades and colors.”

15. “Throughout my life, my prayers have actively sustained me - held me up, carried me through.”

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16. “My mother and our pastor always said you have to pray for your enemies and people who do you wrong, and that's what I did.”

17. “Kids really don't care about what their friends look like.”

18. “I had never seen a white teacher before, but Mrs. Henry was the nicest teacher I ever had.”

19. “My family - my mother and father had gone through such a hard time that by the time I graduated from sixth grade, they were separated.”

20. “I remember what it was like at age 6, not really understanding what was going on around me, but having all these grown-up thoughts running through my head about what I was facing, why this was happening.”

21. “From age 7 to about 37, I had a normal life and not a very easy one.”

22. “When the scary subject of race is finally broached, kids want to talk and talk. It's very satisfying.”

23. “Every day, I would show up, and there were no kids, just me and my teacher in my classroom. Every day, I would be escorted by marshals past a mob of people protesting and boycotting the school. This went on for a whole year.”

24. “My message is really that racism has no place in the hearts and minds of our children.”

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25. "500 kids left school that day because I was there."

26. “We all have a common enemy, and it is evil.”

27. “I would dream that this coffin had wings, and it would fly around my bed at night, and so it was a dream that happened a lot, and that’s what frightened me.”

28. “It's taken me a long time to own the early part of my life.”

29. “When I think about our babies today and them not being safe in school, I think that should be the next civil rights movement, you know, is to ban the assault weapons so that our babies can be safe.”

30. “I like to share my story with children, and they are amazed by the story.”

31. “Once my school was integrated, and I was there with white kids and a few black kids, it really didn't matter to us what we looked like.”

32. “If you really think about it, if we begin to teach history exactly the way that it happened―good, bad, ugly, no matter what. I believe that we’re going to find that we are closer, more connected than we are apart.”

33. “My mother had taught me that the only thing you could depend on was your faith, and I had that.”

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34. “I felt like there was something I needed to do – speaking to kids and sharing my story with them and helping them understand racism has no place in the minds and hearts of children.”

35. “We have tolerance, respect, and equality in our written laws but not in the hearts of some of our people.”

36. “When it comes to love, never be reckless with someone else’s heart.”

37. “I pray for my enemies, that God would forgive them.”

38. “None of our kids come into the world knowing anything about disliking one another.”

39. “Racism is a form of hate. We pass it on to our young people. When we do that, we are robbing children of their innocence.”

40. “The mission of the Ruby Bridges Foundation is to create educational opportunities like science camp that allow children from different racial, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds to build lasting relationships.”

41. “The person that impacted my life the most would have to have been my father because he shaped me into who I am today.”

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42. “Wisdom is a gift but has nothing to do with age. That was probably the case with me.”

43. “We must absolutely take care of one another.”

44. “History is sacred. For me, history is a foundation and the truth.”

45. “I’m very proud that my parents happened to be people who did. They were not privileged to have a formal education.”

46. “Somehow, it always worked. Kneeling at the side of my bed and talking to the Lord made everything okay.”

47. “I wish there were enough marshals to walk with every child as they faced the hatred and racism today, and to support, encourage them the way these federal marshals did for me.”

48. “I believe that we have to come together, and we have to rely on the goodness of each other.”

49. “All of our schools should be good enough to attract a healthy racial mix, which, I believe, leads to the most effective learning for everybody.”

50. “The funny part about the test was that six children passed it to go to the all-white schools, but none of them were boys, it was all girls. Later my parents found out that the two other girls in my district had been taken out by their parents because they thought it was going to be a bad idea. I was going to William Frantz alone.”

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51. “Administrations and administrative faculty work very hard to see that schools are diverse as much as possible.”

52. “The people I passed every morning as I walked up the school's steps were full of hate. They were white, but so was my teacher, who couldn't have been more different from them. She was one of the most loving people I had ever known.”

53. “If we are about what is good today, then we that are good, need to come together to fight what’s bad out there.”

54. “If my mama said not to do something, I didn’t do it.”

55. “If kids have the opportunity to come together to get to know one another, they can judge for themselves who they want their friends to be. All children should have that choice. We, as adults, shouldn't make those choices for children. That's how racism starts.”

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