Civil rights activist Ruby Bridges speaking in Spartanburg at MLK event

SPARTANBURG, S.C. (FOX Carolina) – Ruby Bridges, a civil rights activist, will be speaking in Spartanburg at the annual MLK Community Celebration.

Bridges was the first Black student to integrate an all-white elementary school alone in Louisiana at the age of six. Her walk to the front door of William Frantz Elementary School was commemorated in 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.

Bridges later established the Ruby Bridges Foundation which provides leadership training programs that inspire youth and community leaders to embrace and value the richness of diversity.

She is a published author of works including, Through My Eyes, This Is Your Time, I Am Ruby Bridges and Dear Ruby, Hear Our Hearts.

She has won the NAACP Martin Luther King Award and the Presidential Citizens Medal and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame last year.

Bridges will be speaking at the MLK Community Celebration on Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium.

The event is not ticketed and doors open at 1:30 p.m.

MORE NEWS: Upstate events to celebrate life, legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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