Through My Eyes

The Bridges’s neighborhood was extremely supportive of the family, too, checking in and offering support. Neighbors even set up a nighttime watch to patrol the block and “make sure no one was prowling around” (38). Another neighbor offered Mr. Bridges a new job. By December, the family was receiving regular support from neighbors and still receiving gifts from people in the mail.

Protests were also losing steam and shrinking. “The people who came [to protest],” Bridges remembers, “were angry, loud militants, but the numbers were down” (38). Some white parents allowed their children to return to the school, although Ruby remained on her own for lessons.

Bridges notes in this chapter that John F. Kennedy was recently elected president, which meant that “segregationists in Baton Rouge knew that Washington would be less sympathetic to their cause than before” (39). Democrats embraced civil rights to a greater extent than their political opponents, and Kennedy was a Democrat.

Chapter 17 is one of the longest chapters in the book and contains the longest excerpt from a source other than Bridges. Half of the chapter is an account written by Mrs. Barbara Henry, the first grade teacher.

Bridges describes the routine that she had adjusted to at school. “Being Mrs. Henry’s only student wasn’t a chore,” she says. “It was fun and felt sort of special” (40). Bridges felt like Mrs. Henry was a best friend and felt safe with her. The two rarely left the room even for exercise. Instead, they’d move desks and do jumping jacks together in the classroom. The reader learns that Mrs. Henry was from Boston, Massachusetts, and brought Northern conceptions of civil rights and a Bostonian accent with her to New Orleans. Even Mrs. Henry’s accent impacted Ruby, who began to lose her Southern drawl.

In Mrs. Henry’s account, the former teacher discusses how awed she was by Bridges and how much she cared about the young girl. She did not like the school administration and remembered, “Ruby and I were both treated as unwelcome outsiders” (42). Her whole year was very secretive, as very few people knew the details of her teaching assignment.

Over the winter, a child psychologist named Robert Coles contacted the Bridges family and began meeting with Ruby at their home. She thought that “he became interested in [her] and wondered how [she] could go through such an ordeal” (46). Bridges liked Dr. Coles, who was also visiting “with the three girls from McDonogh No. 19 and with the white children from each integrated school” (46). Coles routinely interviewed Bridges about how she was coping and asked her draw photos about her life and talk to him about the drawings (46). They would then discuss the pictures. Some of the drawings are reproduced in the book, including a self-portrait that Bridges drew at age seven. As a result of these visits, Dr. Coles and his wife became welcome guests in the Bridges home.