Lucille Bridges, the mother of an iconic Civil Rights activist Ruby Bridges, who walked with her then-6-year-old daughter past crowds yelling racist insults as she became the first Black student at her all-white New Orleans elementary school, has died at the age of 86, according to the Associated Press.
On her Instagram account Tuesday night, Ruby Bridges said, “Today our country lost a hero. Brave, progressive, a champion for change. She helped alter the course of so many lives by setting me out on my path as a six year old little girl. Our nation lost a Mother of the Civil Rights Movement today. And I lost my mom. I love you and am grateful for you. May you Rest In Peace.”
Bridges gave birth to Ruby in Tylertown, Mississippi, in 1954 — the same year as the landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, a decision that stopped racial segregation in schools.
Her daughter became stamped into the minds of everyone and in the Civil Rights Movement, memorialized in Norman Rockwell’s famous painting “The Problem We All Live With” which showcases a tiny Ruby in a white dress carrying her notebooks and a ruler surrounded by much taller U.S. Marshals. But Ruby Bridges once credited her parents as the forces behind her notable achievement, according to the article.
“My parents are the real heroes,” the U.S. Marshals Service once quoted her as saying during a ceremony at an art gallery showing the painting. “They (sent me to that public school) because they felt it was the right thing to do.”
Mayor LaToya Cantrell recognized Lucille Bridges’ contributions in a statement Tuesday night.
“Today we mourn the loss of one of the mothers of the Civil Rights Movement in New Orleans with the passing of Lucille Bridges — mother of five, including Ruby Bridges,” Cantrell said in the article. “May she rest in God’s perfect peace.”
Cantrell said Ruby’s father, Abon Bridges, was initially hesitant to send his daughter to the all-white William Frantz Elementary School as a first-grader in 1960, at the request of the NAACP. But his wife persisted, the article stated. According to the National Women’s History Museum, Lucille Bridges wanted her daughter to have the education she never had. She walked her daughter to school every day, the museum said in the article.
“Lucille’s strength was unbounded during this period,” Cantrell said, adding: “Lucille insisted, seeing the action as an opportunity to help all Black children, and walked Ruby, with federal marshals, past chanting and taunting white protesters and to the schoolhouse. Mother and daughter both revealed their character and courage.”
Bridges, too, endured hardship as she pushed for her daughter to receive an equal education, WGNO-TV reported in the article.
The news outlet said Bridges was born to sharecroppers in Mississippi and did not finish an elementary school education. But she had willed for her daughter to pursue the same opportunities that her white counterparts received.
The Bridges eventually moved to New Orleans in search of better work and education opportunities for their family, according to the National Women’s History Museum. Abon Bridges died in 1978.
The image of Ruby from the Norman Rockwell painting has gotten a new spark of attention recently due to a new version of it that shows Vice President-elect Kamala Harris walking alongside Ruby. Harris, who has crossed her own milestones, is the first woman, of Black and Asian descent, elected to the vice presidency role.
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