Ruby Bridges Quotes

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Ruby Bridges

Profession : Activist

Birth : September 8, 1954

My family - my mother and father had gone through such a hard time that by the time I graduated from sixth grade, they were separated.

Ruby Bridges

My mother had taught me that the only thing you could depend on was your faith, and I had that.

Ruby Bridges

The greatest lesson I learned that year in Mrs. Henry's class was the lesson Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to teach us all: Never judge people by the color of their skin. God makes each of us unique in ways that go much deeper.

Ruby Bridges

I pray for my enemies, that God would forgive them.

Ruby Bridges

Wisdom is a gift but has nothing to do with age. That was probably the case with me.

Ruby Bridges

We may not all be equally guilty. But we are all equally responsible for building a decent and just society.

Ruby Bridges

We keep racism alive. We pass it on to our children. I think that is very sad.

Ruby Bridges

You cannot look at a person and tell whether they're good or bad.

Ruby Bridges

The people I passed every morning as I walked up the school's steps were full of hate. They were white, but so was my teacher, who couldn't have been more different from them. She was one of the most loving people I had ever known.

Ruby Bridges

I had never seen a white teacher before, but Mrs. Henry was the nicest teacher I ever had.

Ruby Bridges

Every day, I would show up, and there were no kids, just me and my teacher in my classroom. Every day, I would be escorted by marshals past a mob of people protesting and boycotting the school. This went on for a whole year.

Ruby Bridges

I remember the first time seeing myself on TV, when my family was watching the documentary 'Eyes on the Prize' for the first time. There were pictures of people going up the school stairs, and Mom said, 'Oh, that's you!' I said, 'I can't believe this. This is important.'

Ruby Bridges

We'd get these boxes of clothing in the mail, and my mom would say, 'What makes you think all this is for you? You've got a sister right behind you.' So then I realized, we're all in this together. We have to help each other.

Ruby Bridges

If you really think about it, if we begin to teach history exactly the way that it happened - good, bad, ugly, no matter what - I believe that we're going to find that we are closer, more connected than we are apart.

Ruby Bridges