Ruby Bridges

When the scary subject of race is finally broached, kids want to talk and talk. It's very satisfying.

I felt like there was something I needed to do - speaking to kids and sharing my story with them and helping them understand racism has no place in the minds and hearts of children.

Schools should be diverse if we are to get past racial differences.

I've seen schools in Detroit where the windows are broken, where there's no heat, and children are sitting with their coats on in class in the middle of a snowstorm. I've also seen schools in California with Olympic-sized swimming pools and cafeterias like five-star restaurants.

Throughout my life, my prayers have actively sustained me - held me up, carried me through.

My message is really that racism has no place in the hearts and minds of our children.

I remember the first time seeing myself on TV, when my family was watching the documentary 'Eyes on the Prize' for the first time. There were pictures of people going up the school stairs, and Mom said, 'Oh, that's you!' I said, 'I can't believe this. This is important.'

What I do remember about first grade and that year was that it was very lonely. I didn't have any friends, and I wasn't allowed to go to the cafeteria or play on the playground. What bothered me most was the loneliness in school every day.

My mother and our pastor always said you have to pray for your enemies and people who do you wrong, and that's what I did.

I wanted to use my experience to teach kids that racism has no place in hearts and minds.

Racism is a form of hate. We pass it on to our young people. When we do that, we are robbing children of their innocence.

I never got the chance to meet Linda Brown; there were several times we were supposed to meet or be on the same stage together, but life gets in the way, and it never happened.

If kids have the oportunity to come together to get to know one another, they can judge for themselves who they want their friends to be. All children should have that choice. We, as adults, shouldn't make those choices for children. That's how racism starts.

As African-Americans, people of that generation felt pretty much if they were going to see changes in the world, they had to make sacrifices and step up to the plate. I'm very proud that my parents happened to be people who did. They were not privileged to have a formal education.

We keep racism alive. We pass it on to our children. I think that is very sad.

Our babies know nothing about hate or racism. But soon they begin to learn - and only from us.

It's not who you're going to sit beside at school that matters now: it's what resources will your school have.

Now that I'm a parent, I know that my parents were incredibly brave.

Once my school was integrated, and I was there with white kids and a few black kids, it really didn't matter to us what we looked like.

The people I passed every morning as I walked up the school's steps were full of hate. They were white, but so was my teacher, who couldn't have been more different from them. She was one of the most loving people I had ever known.

If you really think about it, if we begin to teach history exactly the way that it happened - good, bad, ugly, no matter what - I believe that we're going to find that we are closer, more connected than we are apart.