Ruby Bridges’ First-Grade Teacher Spoke At Sheehan

Barbara Henry, famous for teaching school integration icon Ruby Bridges, read to William Sheehan Elementary School students on February 1 as part of Black History Month. She read Alexandra Penfold’s All are Welcome to students in grades kindergarten through the second grade and Jacqueline Woodson’s The Other Side to those in grade three to five.

Sheehan librarian Ann Clarke says “ Students were impressed by [Henry’s] speech and felt honored to meet her.” Henry spoke about teaching Bridges at the William Franz school in New Orleans in 1960 and “....her experience defying established prejudice to teach Ruby alone in the classroom when all the white families kept their children home from the school for the entire year,” reports Clarke.