Lucille Bridges, Mother Of Anti-Segregation Icon Ruby Bridges, Dies At 86

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U.S. Deputy Marshals escort 6-year-old Ruby Bridges from William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, in this November 1960, file photo. Lucille Bridges, Ruby’s mother, died Tuesday at the age of 86.

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With signs calling for segregation, a crowd gathers outside the William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans on Monday, Nov. 14, 1960, the first day of classes for 6-year-old Black student Ruby Bridges.

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In an interview several years ago, Lucille explained that before her daughter’s first day of classes on Nov. 14, 1960, the Orleans Parish school superintendent «explained to me and my husband that … we had to pray because things were going to get really worse.

She said that when they «drove up right by the school, they had so many United States marshals, so many people just standing, screaming and hollering ‘Two, four, six, eight, we don’t want to integrate.'

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She said the crowd tossed eggs and tomatoes at them and even followed them home. «And when they followed us home, they started pitching bottles and things.

The families of many of the white students subsequently pulled their children out of the school.

Lucille said she and her family lived under armed guard from federal marshals for the whole school year.

According to the National Women’s History Museum, Ruby’s father, Abon, was reluctant to have her attend an all-white school — it was Lucille who insisted.

«I wanted it better for my kids than it was for us, so that my kids could go to school and learn, Lucille explained in the interview.

The museum says the Bridges suffered for Ruby’s right to attend the school: her father lost his job, local grocery stores refused to sell to Lucille, and Ruby’s grandparents were evicted from the farm where they had lived for years.