Black Women Are Spearheading The Fight Against Book Bans

Ruby Bridges

Bridges is a civil rights activist who’s been contributing to the advancement of Black people through education since she was 6 years old and became the first Black child to integrate an elementary school in New Orleans, Louisiana, in November 1960.

The 69-year-old now hosts the Ruby Bridges Reading Festival annually with the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. Shortly after this year’s celebration, she opened up about her first children’s book — 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School — being targeted.

“There was a time when we as African Americans couldn’t be caught with a book, or couldn’t let people know we knew how to read,” Bridges told Chalkbeat Tennessee in May 2023. “But we’ve come a long way from that, and it seems like we could be heading in that direction again if books are being banned.”

“Once my books are pulled down, you probably should expect that a lot more would follow. But if you’re banning my books because they’re too truthful, then why don’t we start having a conversation about the books that we force our young people to study, like the textbooks we know omit so much of the truth?”