Through My Eyes

Bridges introduces the Gabrielle family, who, like the Foremans, believed in integration and kept their child enrolled in William Frantz Public School after Bridges enrolled. She describes them as “brave” (28). Their young daughter, Yolanda, was another first grader, although Bridges says that she never met or saw her classmate at school. She explains that “the school building was large, and any white children who attended were kept far from my classroom” (28).

For three weeks after Ruby started attending, the Gabrielles continued bringing Yolanda to school. In that time, vandals attacked their house, protestors continually bombarded the family in public, and angry segregationists “threatened to hurt the Gabrielle children” (28). The abuse drove the Gabrielles not only to withdraw their daughter from the school but also to move to a Northern state.

An excerpt from a 1962 Good Housekeeping magazine accompanies this chapter, in which a journalist discusses Yolanda’s realization that she was in danger as she examined the crowd heckling and threatening her family. She started having nightmares and begged her mother not to make her go to school.