The Gardner Bullis Walk or Wheel program, in collaboration with the YMCA’s Project Cornerstone, hosted a schoolwide Ruby Bridges Walk to School event to honor desegregation and promote healthy habits.
Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day is a state-sanctioned event that recognizes Bridges, who made history on Nov. 14, 1960, when as a 6-year-old she became the first Black child to integrate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, becoming a national icon for the civil rights movement.
Upon walking to school that morning escorted by federal marshals, Bridges met with a protest and boycott against her presence, with white parents pulling their children out of school and all but one of the school’s teachers refusing to teach while Bridges was enrolled. Despite the animosity and threats of racial violence, Bridges persisted in attending the school. Now 69, she is an author, philanthropist and activist who has continued the fight for equity she began as a child.
Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day serves as an annual day of dialogue to commemorate her historic steps.
Gardner Bullis families gathered just before 8 a.m. at Los Altos Hills Town Hall to march the half-mile to campus as an entire school community. Once they arrived, students attended an assembly about the history of Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day. Upper-grade students spoke about why Bridges’ story is so important, what her steps meant for the country at the time and why the act remains valuable decades later.
In preparation for the day, Project Cornerstone representatives visited classrooms to teach students about Bridges. The students created “marching signs” with inspirational and positive messaging. The Gardner Bullis PTA has brought Project Cornerstone to the school to add to the social-emotional curriculum. The program aims to create an environment where adults support all youth so they grow up feeling valued, respected and known. while discovering who they are, how to cultivate abilities and strengths to shape their own lives, and how to engage with and contribute to the world around them.
