Brown Vs. Board of Education By: Elizabeth Lantzas

A eight year old black girl Linda Brown had to cross Topeka, Kansas to go to her grade school, when her white friends were able to go to a public school that was only a couple blocks away. Her parents were so mad that they sued the Topeka school system. They thought that the schools were treating blacks unequally. It was finally brought to the supreme court.

Linda Brown

A six year old black girl Ruby Bridges was put into an all white school. She was confused at first why she changed schools. She was very disappointed that she was not going to the same school her friends were going to. Her parents tried to explain why she was going to this all white school the best they could. She soon started at William Frantz Public School on November 14th 1960.

Ruby Bridges

Ruby was brought to school by US marshals. The reason they were there was because many white people were not happy about Ruby going to the white school and they didn’t care if she got hurt. Many angry mobs came to the school with signs and yelled nasty names at Ruby. One person in the mob was holding a little coffin with a small black doll inside this made Ruby very scared.

Scary Beginning

At Ruby’s school parents were taking their kids out of school, because they didn’t think it was right for a black girl to be in the same school as their kids. Ruby ended up being the only one in her class and on the floor. Her teacher Mrs. Henry taught Ruby nicely even though ruby was black. Even though the principle and other teachers didn’t want Ruby in the school Ruby didn’t seem to care.

School

Ruby would not eat at school. Many people had threatened to poison her. When her teacher Mrs. Henry found out she started to eat with Ruby. After awhile Ruby finally asked why there were no kids in her class. After she asked this Mrs. Henry had a long talk with the principal. A few kids were put in her class.

Classmates

The first day Ruby had classmates they played duck-duck goose. The other kids tried as hard as they could to try to skip Ruby. But Mrs. Henry would have none of that so she said no skipping. One boy named Billy told the teacher that his mom didn’t want him to play with Ruby because she was black. The next day the same boy covered his ears so he couldn’t here Ruby. After days of these new kids in the class Mrs. Henry was watching the kids play at recess and Billy even made room for Ruby on the merry go round.

Billy

By the time Ruby started second grade most white kids where back in the school. More black kids began to go to white schools. Ruby even started to make friends. The board of education was starting to be fair.

Fair

Citations

(http://www.georgetown.u47.k12.me.us/grade6.01/ck/rubybridges_and_brown_vs._.html)

(http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/enlight/brown.htm)

(http://library.thinkquest.org/j0112391/ruby_bridges.htm)

(http://www.iearn.org/hgp/aeti-1998-no-frames/ruby-bridges.htm)