She walks,
flanked by four guards,
too small in her white dress
to face so large a fight, and yet
she strides.
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Author Notes
In 1960, six year old Ruby Bridges was accompanied inside an all white elementary school in New Orleans by Federal Marshalls, assigned to protect her as she became the first African American child to attend an all white school in the South.
Norman Rockwell captured this scene in his painting, The Problem We All Have to Live With. Too much is going on to describe it all in a cinquain, so I have focused on the resoluteness of this tiny girl as she walked past jeering crowds. The painting depicts even more of the ugliness - a tomato thrown against the wall, the word "Nigger" scrawled on the wall directly behind her. And yet this tiny child in her little girl dress and anklets just keeps marching past it all. Her courage calls out to me each time I see this image. Please google it to get the full effect.
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