Ruby Bridges favorite quote: We all have to get into good trouble

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This past weekend was the 60th anniversary that Ruby Bridges desegregated New Orleans’ all-white William Frantz Elementary School. At the time Ruby was six years old. She was escorted to school by federal marshalls and her fearless mother because terrorizing angry mobs would gather outside everyday to protest her Black presence in their all-white school. Ruby’s mom passed away last week and one of Ruby’s tributes to her is below.

Ruby eventually became a life long civil rights activist and has recently signed a three book deal with Scholastic. Ruby spoke to Hoda Kotb for Today to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of New Orleans public schools and her role in it. In the interview, Hoda and Ruby reminisced about the first time they met over twenty years ago when Hoda was a reporter in New Orleans. Ruby said that she lives by John Lewis’s quote that “people need to get into good trouble.” Below are a few excerpts:

Hoda asked her for a quote she lives by
I think about John Lewis and I think about how he would say that we all have to get into good trouble. I kind of lived my life by that because of that experience at six years old. I’ve always felt like if we were going to get past our racial differences that it was going to come from our young people and that they need to get involved. Hearing him say ‘go out and get into good trouble,’ that was something that stuck with me and something I tell young people all the time.

It is so meaningful right now at this moment that we’re in. We need people to get into good trouble. All of us need to be doing something good to make this country better. My work is with young people. What John Lewis, what his life stood for, that whole quote inspires young people.

[From The Today Show on YouTube]

I love that Ruby is still very active in creating the America that her mother had hoped to create sixty years ago when Ruby was just six years old. It is very inspiring that she is reaching back to younger generations to encourage them to get into good trouble. It amazes me how incredibly resilient Ruby is. I cannot imagine what that little six year old girl was thinking as she had people yell and spit on her just because she wanted to go to school. The fact that that experience did not make her go into hiding as an adult astounds me. It is not lost on me that Ruby Bridges and the Civil Rights Movement was during my mom’s generation. It also not lost on me that my great great grandfather was born into slavery in this country. The history of America is very present and Black Americans are still struggling with the hand of those same oppressive systems that created generations of slavery and led to Jim Crow and an apartheid society.

There have been moments in my life where I believed in a better America. From 1994-97 I served in the U.S. Navy. In 2008, I was inspired for the first time in my life to get involved in politics so I volunteered to work on Barack Obama’s campaign at my university. For many years I lost faith in my country but this year, I again waded into the waters of politics in a non-political way and worked for three weeks as a poll worker. Soon I will be writing and sending postcards to remind potential voters in Georgia to vote in the runoff election in January. I say all of this because in some way I have had moments when I realized that I had to get into “good trouble” if I wanted to see a better America, and better world. Like Ruby and John I truly believe action is the antidote for complacency and despair.

I look forward to reading the books that Ruby writes and sharing them with all of my “god” children. I believe that we must our history, how far we’ve come and how far we must go. We need to encourage every generation to be actively involved in building our communities and dismantling systems of oppression so that we can have more equitable societies. Maybe then we can achieve a society in which we can all flourish with hard work and resilience.

Here’s that interview! Ruby had to use her phone as she lives in New Orleans and her power was out due to the hurricane:

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