Ruby’s Prayer

Some of the Grade 2’s visited the office on Wednesday to share their work. We love it when the children spontaneously arrive to let us in on what they’ve been doing in class. We always learn something. This particular activity for the Grade 2/3 class was just great. The children created a ‘Biography Bag’ for a civil rights activist of their choosing. On the outside of the bag, the children provided when their person was born and when they died, what they were famous for and one interesting fact about them. Inside the bag, the children placed drawings of things that represented them – like Rosa Parks in jail, where she was taken after refusing to give up her seat to a white person on an Alabama bus in 1955. We’re getting pretty solid on our Black History facts in the office (we’ve been learning along with the children) but we heard something for the first time from A and her biography of Ruby Bridges on Wednesday. Ruby was just 6 years old when she became the first African American to attend an all-white school in the American south, beginning the process of desegregation. We can only imagine the resilience and courage required to do what she did. We knew Ruby had done this incredibly brave thing but we didn’t know what she did to help her through such a harrowing experience. A included the little mantra that Ruby recited to herself, every day, twice a day, to give her the strength to deal with the cruelty she must have experienced. WOW. Thank you A for bringing this to our attention. We were so touched in the office and wanted to make sure you knew about Ruby’s mantra too. We could all use some of Ruby’s wisdom in our lives.

“Please God, try to forgive those people because even if they say those bad things they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Ruby Bridges