In 1960, Ruby Bridges became the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in Louisiana.

In his 1962 book, Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck wrote about what he saw:

“Across the street from the school the police had set up wooden barriers to keep the crowd back, and they paraded back and forth, ignoring the jokes called to them. The front of the school was deserted but along the curb United States marshals were spaced, not in uniform but wearing armbands to identify them. Their guns bulged decently under their coats but their eyes darted about nervously, inspecting faces…

Four big marshals got out of each car and from somewhere in the automobiles they extracted the littlest Negro girl you ever saw,
dressed in shining starchy white, with new white shoes on her feet so little they were almost round…

The big marshals stood her on the curb and a jangle of jeering shrieks went up from behind the barricades. The little girl did not look at the howling crowd but had the face of a frightened fawn. The men turn her around like a doll, and then the strange procession moved up the broad walk toward the school, and the child was even more a mite because the men were so big. Then the girl made a curious hop, and I think I know what it was. I think in her whole life she had not gone ten steps without skipping, but now in the middle of her first skip the weight bore her down and her little round feet took measured, reluctant steps between the tall guards. Slowly they climbed the steps and entered the school.”