In the beginning of 1957 when I was 11 – still trying to smile like Elvis – nine black students – the Little Rock Nine – had to be escorted by 101st Airborne to gain entrance to the school. Eisenhower announced that it was impermissible for a state to defy the orders of the U.S. Supreme Court.
I was 15 when in 1960 (which was ninety-five years after the Civil War, but still four years before the Voting Rights Act) Ruby Bridges, a 6 years old black child, was escorted by Federal marshals into the William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans; a little girl who on her first day thought the hostile crowds surrounding her school had something to do with the Mardi Gras. When she entered the school, through the threats and the taunts, the white parents took all of their children out. For the entire year, Ruby was in a classroom by herself. FROM AN AMERICAN STORY.
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