WATSONVILLE — It may have been cold and somewhat clammy Thursday morning, but nothing was going to stop Pajaro Valley High School from walking half a mile to campus in honor of Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day.
At the age of 6, Bridges was the first Black student to attend William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans on Nov. 14, 1960. This followed a ruling by U.S. Circuit Judge J. Skelly Wright, who ordered the desegregation of schools in the city after six years of resistance to Brown v. the Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that ruled segregated schools were unconstitutional. Bridges had to be escorted by the U.S. Marshals Service and faced a lot of pushback, including death threats, but continued to attend school every day. She was the subject of Norman Rockwell’s 1964 painting “The Problem We All Live With,” which was installed at the White House in 2011. Now at age 70, Bridges remains an active advocate for racial equality and education, continuing to speak out and work with organizations dedicated to social justice.
Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day began when students in South San Francisco advocated to make Nov. 14 a day honoring Bridges. With the help of the San Mateo County Office of Education, a resolution was passed by the state Senate in 2021 to proclaim the day as Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day. A total of 650,000 students participated in 2023, with Pajaro Valley High taking part for the first time.
Minc Robinson Brooker, adviser of the Black Student Union club at Pajaro Valley High, learned about the walk a few years ago and wanted to bring it to her school. She registered to participate through AAA, which is sponsoring the day alongside the Ruby Bridges Foundation, and students were very excited to bring it to fruition.
“The officers from the BSU for last year, they took this idea and ran with it,” she said.
This year, students met in the parking lot of Green Valley Cinema and were given commemorative bracelets, beanies and stickers. Carrying banners, they walked out along the sidewalk on Silver Leaf Drive, then turned right onto Harkins Slough Road and onto campus, ending up in the quad where students and education leaders delivered short remarks before the first class bell rang. They were enthusiastically greeted by other students, one of whom blasted Alan Silvestri’s theme to “The Avengers” on an iPhone as students walked up the hill.
Maximiliano Barraza Hernandez, a sophomore and president of the Black Student Union, said that he learned about Bridges’ story during last year’s school walk and was intrigued to learn more. After hearing an announcement on the intercom about the Black Student Union, he decided to check it out. Barraza Hernandez himself is Latino and noticed that most students also were not Black but rather people of color, and asked Robinson Brooker about it. She said the club was “a place to look at Black culture through a Black lens.”
“(That’s) something that doesn’t really happen here at PV because students are primarily Latino,” he said. “She also assured me that learning Black culture through the Black lens helps connect ourselves because we’re all people of color, and we’re all enduring the same struggles together. As people of color, we should lift each other up, instead of bringing each other down.”
Barraza Hernandez told the Sentinel that he hopes the day is a reminder that people are not done with civil rights struggles.
“Just because we’ve had a couple wins, because we’ve had a Black president, doesn’t mean that racism is over,” he said. “Racism still happens, and there’s still been multiple cases like the George Floyd incident that happened pretty recently. That’s just telling people that we’re not done with this. We have to continue to fight racism.”
Izzy Leon, a senior, said she participated in gratitude to Robinson Brooker, who has been a mentor for her.
“Being one of the few Black students here on campus has been challenging, from kindergarten all the way up to now, and having Ms. Brooker — who is a Black teacher — come up to me and basically put me under her wing,” she said, “I just want to do everything for her. I’ll participate in everything she does.”
Leon hopes people will take away a sense of compassion.
“I really hope they learn to be empathetic to other groups, recognize that we’re all in this together and show kindness to all groups regardless of race, ethnicity or gender,” she said.
Robinson Brooker said the large turnout was “beyond cool.” She said it has turned out to be bigger than she could have envisioned, even inspiring Faris Sabbah, Santa Cruz County superintendent of schools, to try to bring the day countywide.
“My intention for us was just to recognize the bravery of a 6-year-old girl,” she said.
One of the most remarkable things about Bridges’ story to Robinson Brooker was how Bridges saw the large crowd of people outside her school and she thought it was a Mardi Gras celebration. Her mother told her that when she saw those people, just pray.
“That’s what she did,” she said. “She didn’t really understand, but she just prayed. I have a grandson who’s 5, I just can’t even imagine.”
At the quad, Robinson Brooker told the crowd about talking with Principal Todd Wilson about Ruby Bridges Day and him suggesting they go on a route that would take them across a bridge over West Branch Struve Slough. Robinson Brooker loved the symbolism, not just because of Bridges’ last name or because of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, serving as a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement but because of what bridges themselves represent.
“Bridges connect,” she said. “Bridges bring people together, which is why I’m so humbled and so thankful to see as many people here as I see.”
Andres Ortiz, Santa Cruz County Office of Education’s student leadership and engagement coordinator, said the day represented equal access to education and encouraged everyone to research Bridges’ story.
“The issues of what brought about this day, the struggles that Ruby Bridges went through, a lot of those things are still perpetuating today,” he said.
Sabbah said that her story stressed a need to come together, especially in today’s political climate.
“When I think about what Ruby stood for and what she stands for today, when I think about her courage (and) her voice for unity, when I think about the anger and the hate that she faced and she made it to school, and she represents hope for us today,” he said. “We need that hope now more than ever.”
Heather Contreras, Pajaro Valley Unified School District superintendent, said Ruby Bridges Day was moving beyond just Pajaro Valley High. The district’s Inter-High Council, composed of members of the associated student bodies of the district’s high schools, would be kicking off a yearlong Kindness and Courage Campaign, and one of the first tasks is for high schoolers to construct a lesson plan around Bridges and teach it to elementary and middle schoolers.
“It’s great to see young people come around together supporting anti-racism, kindness and courage,” she said.