Discrimination In Ruby Bridges's Through My Eyes

Racial hatred traumatized countless African Americans who would fight for their rights. Rights that people now take for granted. Martin Luther King, Jr. suffered from discrimination throughout his entire life. He helped motivate people to stand up for what they believed in and he taught them to never give up. He also helped many children and families throughout his life. In his “I Have a Dream” speech he states:
“But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”(King 1).
Many people , from all races

and around the world, listened to his speech. Racial discrimination can make any person feel hopeless and useless. African Americans never believed the situation would end. We as a society, have made a lot of progress, we still have a long way to go.
In the late 1950’s Emmett Till, a young 14-year-old African American boy, was kidnapped and murdered. Emmett was beaten so badly that his mother could barely recognize her son’s body. The killers Roy Bryant and J.W Milam, “Didn’t believe they did anything wrong” (Reporter Bruno Hauptmann 1).
The men were found not guilty, chaos erupted. African Americans were astonished by the jury’s decision and were furious because it was an all white jury, which seemed biased. All over the world the unthinkable news of the verdict, spread like wildfire. In the book, Getting Away With Murder, the author tells the story in chronological order, which explains the rapid change taking place at the time.
African Americans were attacked for standing up for what they believed in. In the book, Freedom Walkers by: Russell Freedman, it talks about how depressed all African Americans were but how they still had courage to fight. The book states, “The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage” (Freedman 39).They were beaten and killed. Many of these acts were done by the KKK (Ku Klux Klan), a secret organization of White Protestant Americans, mainly located in the South. They used violence against Black people, Jewish people, and other minority groups. Innocent people were being killed because of the color of their skin and for standing up for their rights as citizens of the United States.
The memoir, Through my Eyes, by Ruby Bridges, tells the story of her life and how racial discrimination affected her personal life.

She was a young African American girl. At the age of 7 she had the opportunity to merge into an all-white school. Her teacher, Mrs. Henry, was a white woman. She helped her through the big change of integrating into an all white student school. Everyday, when Ruby would go to school, there was a mob of white people that threatened her and would scream horrible things to her. Every morning when Ruby entered the door to Mrs. Henry’s class, Mrs. Henry was always standing there to greet Ruby with a giant smile. Mrs. Henry also stood up for Ruby. She stood up to the principal who wanted to change Ruby’s test score on her year end test. Ruby had done excellent on the test, but the principal was going to lower Ruby’s score, so that she would not be accepted into the school the following year. Mrs. Henry stood up for Ruby and told that principal that changing her test score was not right and that she was making a fool out of herself. At the end of the year, a group of kids started playing with her. One young boy would always stare at her and be rude. One day he said, “My mama said I can’t play with you because you’re a nigger”. Young children were raised to think that racial discrimination was okay and they did not know any other way to act. Ruby accomplished many things throughout the remainder of her life (list a couple thing.) She was

a brave woman who made a difference in the evolution of racial equality.
Another group of students made the daring decision, like Ruby Bridges, and took the opportunity to go to an all white school. “The Little Rock Nine,” were a group of nine African-American students that also took the opportunity to integrate into an all white high school. *STOPPED FIXING*This was known as the Little Rock Crisis. White people were very angry. But it was time, the Brown vs. Board of Education had already happened which made school segregation illegal in 1954, so in 1957 the Little Rock Nine made history. Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to support the segregationists on September 4, 1957. This incident made national headlines. But it didn’t make since to the African American students because they were granted this opportunity. On September 24, President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock and federalized the entire 10,000-member Arkansas National Guard. They were to protect the nine students. Even though they had the National Guard to protect them they still got verbal and physical abuse.
In conclusion, racism has affected so many people's lives from the past till now.

African Americans never believed that the situation would end, although we as a society, have made it far, we still have a long way to go. I believe we need to all stand up for what we believe in no matter if someone has take us to shun them. We all have a right to freedom of speech to share our opinion so I believe we should take an advantage of that and use it. People need to focus on ways to help other people to make our society a better place.Motivation was a key factor that helped people stand up for what they believed in.Motivation was all it would take to get what they

wanted.