Annual Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Featuring Ruby Bridges

Name: Annual Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Featuring Ruby Bridges
Start: 2024-01-24T17:30:00-05:00
End: 2024-01-24T19:00:00-05:00
Location: Annual Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Featuring Ruby Bridges

1.24.24 | 5:30pm–7pm

Woman in a posed in a fun over the shoulder, wearing a bright green sweater.

Building Bridges, Breaking Barriers: The Ongoing Fight for Educational Justice. Ruby Bridges in conversation with Dr. William Johnson and Stephanie Owusu YC ’24

January 24, 2024 | 5:30pm–7pm |

Woolsey Hall

Instructions

Woolsey Hall is located at 168 Grove Street, aka 500 College Street, New Haven, CT 06511.

Doors open at 5:15

Free and open to the public. In person and livestreamed.

Tags

Belonging, Equity

The Yale University and Greater New Haven communities are invited to attend this year’s MLK Commemoration that honors the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We are pleased to announce that the commemoration will feature Ruby Bridges.

Ruby Bridges is a Civil Rights icon, activist, author, and speaker who, at the age of six, was the first Black student to integrate an all-white elementary school in Louisiana. She was born in Mississippi in 1954, the same year the United States Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision ordering the integration of public schools. Her family later moved to New Orleans, where on November 14, 1960, Bridges began attending William Frantz Elementary School, single-handedly initiating the desegregation of public education. Her walk to the front door of the school was immortalized in Norman Rockwell’s painting The Problem We All Live With, in Robert Coles’ book The Story of Ruby Bridges, and in the Disney movie Ruby Bridges.

She established the Ruby Bridges Foundation to provide leadership training programs that inspire youth and community leaders to embrace and value the richness of diversity. Bridges is the recipient of numerous awards, including the NAACP Martin Luther King Award, the Presidential Citizens Medal, and honorary doctorate degrees from Connecticut College, College of New Rochelle, Columbia University Teachers College, and Tulane University. Bridges is also the author of Through My Eyes, This Is Your Time, I Am Ruby Bridges, and Dear Ruby, Hear Our Hearts, which will be released in January 2024.