("Ruby Bridges Foundation")
Background
Ruby Nell Bridges was born September 8, 1954 and lived in Tylertown, Mississippi. It was a coincidence that Ruby Bridges was born the same year that the trial of the Supreme Court's Brown vs Board of Education in order. When she was 4 years old, her parents, Abon and Lucille Bridges, moved to New Orleans, hoping for a better life in a bigger city. Her father got a job as a gas station attendant and her mother took night jobs to help support their growing family. Soon young Ruby had two younger brothers and a sister. When Ruby was in kindergarten, she was one of many African-American students in New Orleans who were chosen to take a test determining whether she could attend a white school. It is said the test was written to be especially difficult so that students would have a hard time passing. The idea was that if all the African-American children failed the test, New Orleans schools might be able to stay segregated for a while longer.