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Ruby Bridges Quotes

Ruby Bridges

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We keep racism alive. We pass it on to our children. I think that is very sad.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Sad
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I wanted to use my experience to teach kids that racism has no place in hearts and minds.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Experience
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Wisdom is a gift but has nothing to do with age. That was probably the case with me.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Wisdom
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I believe it doesn't do yourself any good to hate.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Good
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As African-Americans, people of that generation felt pretty much if they were going to see changes in the world, they had to make sacrifices and step up to the plate. I'm very proud that my parents happened to be people who did. They were not privileged to have a formal education.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Education
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My mother had taught me that the only thing you could depend on was your faith, and I had that.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Faith
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All of our schools should be good enough to attract a healthy racial mix, which, I believe, leads to the most effective learning for everybody.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Learning
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You cannot look at a person and tell whether they're good or bad.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Good
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A lot of my strength came from my upbringing.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Strength
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What we, as African Americans, stood on was our faith.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Faith
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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
Collection: Morning
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From age 7 to about 37, I had a normal life and not a very easy one.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Age
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We have tolerance, respect, and equality in our written laws but not in the hearts of some of our people.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Equality
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I had never seen a white teacher before, but Mrs. Henry was the nicest teacher I ever had.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Teacher
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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
Collection: Mom
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We may not all be equally guilty. But we are all equally responsible for building a decent and just society.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Society
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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
Collection: Teacher
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I pray for my enemies, that God would forgive them.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: God
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I remember what it was like at age 6, not really understanding what was going on around me, but having all these grown-up thoughts running through my head about what I was facing, why this was happening.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Age
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We as African Americans knew that if we wanted to see change, we had to step up to the plate and make that change ourselves. Not everyone comes to that realization in their lives, but thank God Linda Brown's father felt that way.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Change
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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
Collection: Family
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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
Collection: God
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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
Collection: Family
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The mission of the Ruby Bridges Foundation is to create educational opportunities like science camp that allow children from different racial, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds to build lasting relationships.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Science
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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
Collection: Good
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I never got the chance to meet Linda Brown; there were several times we were supposed to meet or be on the same stage together, but life gets in the way, and it never happened.
- Ruby Bridges
Collection: Chance
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Racism is a grown-up disease, and we should stop using our kids to spread it.
- Ruby Bridges
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I believe that we have to come together, and we have to rely on the goodness of each other.
- Ruby Bridges
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Kids come into the world with clean hearts, fresh starts.
- Ruby Bridges
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None of our kids come into the world knowing anything about disliking one another.
- Ruby Bridges
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Evil isn't prejudiced. It doesn't care what you look like; it just wants a place to rest. It's up to you whether you give it that place.
- Ruby Bridges
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Racism is a form of hate. We pass it on to our young people. When we do that, we are robbing children of their innocence.
- Ruby Bridges
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I remember turning onto the street. I saw barricades and police officers and, just, people everywhere. When I saw all of that, I immediately thought that it was Mardi Gras. I had no idea that they were here to keep me out of the school.
- Ruby Bridges
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Evil looks like you and I. I know what evil looks like, and I know that it comes in all shades and colors.
- Ruby Bridges
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You cannot look at a person and judge him or her by the color of their skin.
- Ruby Bridges
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I want to inspire kids.
- Ruby Bridges
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We must absolutely take care of one another.
- Ruby Bridges
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Now that I'm a parent, I know that my parents were incredibly brave.
- Ruby Bridges
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It's time to get past our racial differences. We owe it to our children to help them keep their clean start.
- Ruby Bridges
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I'm not a very public person.
- Ruby Bridges
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If my mama said not to do something, I didn't do it.
- Ruby Bridges
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If we are about what is good today, then we that are good need to come together to fight what's bad out there.
- Ruby Bridges
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I think that racism is ugly and so unfair, and I believe that we all need one another.
- Ruby Bridges
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Schools should be diverse if we are to get past racial differences.
- Ruby Bridges
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I was the first black child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana in 1960.
- Ruby Bridges
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I think racism is something that is passed on and taught to our kids, and that's a shame.
- Ruby Bridges
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I would dream that this coffin had wings, and it would fly around my bed at night, and so it was a dream that happened a lot, and that's what frightened me.
- Ruby Bridges
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I believe in my prayers.
- Ruby Bridges
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We have to take care of each other's children.
- Ruby Bridges
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I've seen schools in Detroit where the windows are broken, where there's no heat, and children are sitting with their coats on in class in the middle of a snowstorm. I've also seen schools in California with Olympic-sized swimming pools and cafeterias like five-star restaurants.
- Ruby Bridges

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