47 pages • 1 hour read
Ruby BridgesA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Bridges introduces the Gabrielle family, who, like the Foremans, believed in integration and kept their child enrolled in William Frantz Public School after Bridges enrolled. She describes them as “brave” (28). Their young daughter, Yolanda, was another first grader, although Bridges says that she never met or saw her classmate at school. She explains that “the school building was large, and any white children who attended were kept far from my classroom” (28).
For three weeks after Ruby started attending, the Gabrielles continued bringing Yolanda to school. In that time, vandals attacked their house, protestors continually bombarded the family in public, and angry segregationists “threatened to hurt the Gabrielle children” (28). The abuse drove the Gabrielles not only to withdraw their daughter from the school but also to move to a Northern state.
An excerpt from a 1962 Good Housekeeping magazine accompanies this chapter, in which a journalist discusses Yolanda’s realization that she was in danger as she examined the crowd heckling and threatening her family. She started having nightmares and begged her mother not to make her go to school.
A Black Lives Matter Reading List
View Collection
Black History Month Reads
View Collection
Books About Race in America
View Collection
Books on Justice & Injustice
View Collection
Books on U.S. History
View Collection
Civil Rights & Jim Crow
View Collection
Diverse Voices (Middle Grade)
View Collection
Equality
View Collection
Fear
View Collection
Hate & Anger
View Collection
Inspiring Biographies
View Collection
Middle Grade Nonfiction
View Collection
Safety & Danger
View Collection
Sexual Harassment & Violence
View Collection
Truth & Lies
View Collection
YA & Middle-Grade Books on Bullying
View Collection