Ruby Bridges
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Born: September 8, 1954
Birthplace: Tylertown, MS
Zodiac Sign: Virgo
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Career and Life
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Ruby Nell Bridges Hall is an American civil rights activist. She was the first African-American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis in 1960. She is the subject of a 1964 painting, The Problem We All Live With, by Norman Rockwell.
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In September 1995, Bridges and Robert Coles were awarded honorary degrees from Connecticut College and appeared together in public for the first time to accept the awards.
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Bridges' Through My Eyes won the Carter G. Woodson Book Award in 2000.
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On January 8, 2001, Bridges was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton.
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In October 2006, the Alameda Unified School District in California named a new elementary school for Bridges, and issued a proclamation in her honor. In November 2006 she was honored as a "Hero Against Racism" at the 12th annual Anti-Defamation League "Concert Against Hate" with the National Symphony Orchestra, held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
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On May 19, 2012, Bridges received an Honorary Degree from Tulane University at the annual graduation ceremony at the Superdome.
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In 2014, a statue of Bridges was unveiled in the courtyard of William Frantz Elementary School.
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