Ruby Bridges Meets the President

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Ruby Bridges and Barack Obama Video

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Ruby Bridges in 1960 on her way to school

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In 1960, Ruby Bridges was the first African American to integrate an all white school in the South following the Supreme Court decision against segregation. She is still alive today. <break time="2s"/> In 2011 she visited the museum where she met President Barack Obama in front of the painting.

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Ruby Bridges and Barack Obama Video

Ruby Bridges was the first African American child who attended a white school in the segregated South during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on 14 November, 1960. She is also the subject of a 1964 painting, The Problem We All Live With, by Norman Rockwell. In this video, she talks with President Barack Obama at the Norman Rockwell Museum in front of the iconic picture. Along with the story about the Norman Rockwell Painting, this story can be used to talk about being different, being excluded and belonging, civil rights, history. But you can also use this on a very personal level to talk about the real person in the painting who went to first grade as a little girl.

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