First African-American to Attend White School, 1960
Born in 1954, civil rights activist Ruby Nell Bridges Hall was the first African-American child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South. Sadly, at the time of her enrollment, black students were under harsh threats of physical violence from the white students and their parents.
The school in question was the William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana, and Ruby attended during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis in 1960. Due to the controversy, she had to be escorted to and from school by US marshalls, as depicted in the picture. In 2014, a statue of Bridges was unveiled in the school’s courtyard.