Ruby Steals The Show by Doug Smith

         Los Angeles - Governor Gray Davis told a conference of 6,000 teachers and other educators Saturday that the state will provide $150 bonuses per student to every public school in California that improves its scores five percentile points on next spring's Stanford test. ...
        ... The stars (of the conference) were Ruby Bridges and Barbara Henry, two women who formed a pupil-teacher bond 40 years ago during the turbulent early days of American school integration.

        Bridges has written a first-person children's book on the subject, "Through My Eyes." It recounts her experiences as a 6-year-old girl becoming the first black child admitted to William Frantz Public School in New Orleans in 1960. She has reunited with the white teacher who helped her through that traumatic episode.

        Saturday, they held an audience spellbound in a hall so large that their images had to be projected on two giant screens. On the value of reading, Bridges quoted the abolitionist Frederick Douglass in an essay describing his earliest education - at the knee of his owner's bighearted wife.

When the husband discovered the illicit lessons, he forbade them to continue, but too late, for Douglass had already learned that "knowledge unfits a child to slavery. . . I was master of the alphabet. . . I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom."

        Henry addressed the role of the teacher, describing her frightened young student. Added to Bridges' own emotional strengths, Henry said, their bond protected both from the "peripheral hurts of our live. . . We were able to create our own oasis of love and learning.

        (Their was a four hour line to shake hands and have books signed) Many passed time reading Bridges' book which only went on sale Saturday. They persevered, Santa Barbara school Principal Joanne Young said, "because she is such a profound educator." Scheduled only from 10 a.m. to noon, the signing continued past 3 p.m. until every book was sold and signed.

Los Angeles Times - September 19, 2000

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