Through My Eyes Ruby Bridges
1. What did Mrs. Bridges’ grandparents do for a living? They were sharecroppers, which meant that they raised crops for others and kept a small part of each crop for themselves- they were vegetable and dairy farms
2. After the family moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, what did Ruby’s mother and dad do to make a living? Her dad worked in a service station and her mother did cleaning or making caskets (for dead people)
3. What did Ruby have to do to be considered to be entered into the white school as a first grader? She had to pass a very hard test
4. Why was the test hard? Because the school board didn’t want black children going to white schools and if they all failed, no one would go
5. How did the lawmakers in Louisiana stop the integration of the public schools? They made laws that said that black students couldn’t go to white schools even though the National Government had made a law for it to happen
6. Who took Ruby to the white school with her mother on the first day? Federal Marshalls to protect her from the people who didn’t want her there
7. What did Ruby do during her first day at her new school? She and her mother sat in the office all day and waited. White parents were coming and taking their children out of the school all day
8. What were the ladies called “cheerleaders” doing outside of Ruby’s new school? They were calling her very bad names and shouting at her to go home.
9. How were the white people treated who kept their children in the integrated (both black and white students) schools? They had rocks thrown at them and their cars, their houses were egged and other forms of vandalizing, forcing some of them to move away
10. How did the white people in the neighborhoods react to the Ruby’s family and her going to a white school? Her father was fired from his job and they could no longer shop at some of the stores in the area.
11. How did Ruby’s family get money during this time? People from other parts of the US sent money and presents through the mail
12. Who wrote a letter to Ruby that was her mother’s favorite (she read it over and over)? Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, the former President’s wife
13. Why was Ruby not eating her lunch? She thought that maybe they’d let her go and eat with the white students if she didn’t have a lunch.
14. What was she doing with her lunch? She was hiding it in a storage cabinet in the classroom and pouring her milk into the paste jar- until mice and roaches started to appear in the room
15. Who was Ruby’s teacher? Mrs. Henry
16. Was there anyone else in Ruby’s class at school and why? No, she was alone because no parents wanted their white children with a black student
17. Why did Mr. Cole, Ruby’s child psychiatrist think was making Ruby not eat? That she was concerned about being poisoned, like the woman had told her she was going to do, or she was just frightened.
18. Why did Ruby talk differently? Her teacher, Mrs. Henry, was from Boston so Ruby pronounced everything like she did.
19. Who did Ruby marry? Malcolm Hall and they had 4 sons
20. How did Ruby make integration simpler? She made it easier for Black and whites to go to school together