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Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:742] Ruby Bridges to lecture at Quinnipiac University on March 26
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For immediate release
Contact: John W. Morgan, director of public relations, Quinnipiac
University
(203) 582-5359 or john.morgan@quinnipiac.edu
275 Mount Carmel Avenue, Hamden, Conn. 06518
Ruby Bridges to lecture at Quinnipiac University on March 26
Hamden, Conn. - Feb. 26, 2002 - Ruby Bridges, who initiated the
desegregation of New Orleans' public schools in 1960, will discuss her
experience during a free community lecture at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March
26, in Alumni Hall at Quinnipiac. This event, sponsored by the Division of
Education at Quinnipiac, is free and open to the public.
A federal judge decreed that Monday, Nov. 14, 1960, would be the day black
children in New Orleans would go to school with white children. At the
age of six, Bridges, escorted by federal marshals, became the first black
child to enter William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans.
"The morning of Nov. 14, federal marshals drove my mother and me the five
blocks to William Frantz," Bridges said. "In the car, one of the men
explained that when we arrived at the school two marshals would walk in
front of us and two behind, so we'd be protected on both sides."
An angry mob greeted Bridges and many white families withdrew their children
in protest. "We spent that whole day sitting in the principal's
office," Bridges said. "Through the window, I saw white parents pointing at
us and yelling, then rushing their children out of the school. In the uproar
I never got to my classroom."
Bridges' experience forever changed desegregation in the South and taught
her a valuable lesson she still spreads today. "Schools can be a place to
bring people together, kids of all races and backgrounds," she said. "That's
the work I focus on now, connecting our children through their schools. It's
my way of continuing what God set in motion 40 years ago when he led me up
the steps of William Frantz Public School and into a new world."
Today, Bridges is back at William Frantz Elementary School as a parent
liaison, getting parents more involved in their children's education. She
also has founded the Ruby Bridges Educational Foundation, a New
Orleans-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to interface between
parents and students to further educational advancement for all children.
For more information, call (203) 582-8652.
Quinnipiac is a private, coeducational, non-sectarian institution located 90
minutes north of New York City and two hours from Boston. The university
enrolls nearly 4,600 full-time undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students in
more than 50 undergraduate and 17 graduate programs of study in business,
health sciences, law, liberal arts, education and communications. Quinnipiac
consistently ranks among the top regional universities in US News and World
Report's America's Best Colleges. For more information, visit
www.quinnipiac.edu.
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