Ruby Bridges Bio

Ruby Bridges was born in Mississippi in 1954 and moved to New Orleans at the age of two. In 1960, the NAACP contacted Ruby's parents in seeking children to participate in the integration of the New Orleans schools. Ruby's parents felt it was their obligation to better their children's lives and help change a discriminatory system. They said yes to the NAACP and in doing so, changed their lives and Ruby's forever.

On November 14, 1960, Ruby Nell Bridges became the first African-American child to desegregate an elementary school. On that day, federal marshals escorted Ruby into William Frantz Public School in New Orleans, Louisiana, and into history. Her brave march into school attracted attention locally and nationwide - and much of it negative. Angry protesters yelled at Ruby and held up intimidating signs and symbols. White parents pulled their children from the school and boycotted William Frantz elementary for a year. The size of Ruby's class that first year? One. Two, if you count her teacher, Mrs. Henry. Still, Ruby went to school every day.

Ruby Bridges' story has been depicted in Norman Rockwell's picture "The Problem We All Live With", and in Robert Coles' The Story of Ruby Bridges. Ruby has published her own version of her experience in Through My Eyes. Ruby is in great demand as a speaker and lecturer and visits schoolchildren across the country to recount her story and instill her message of appreciation of all differences.

Shirley Chisholm Bio

Shirley St. Hill Chisholm was born on November 30, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York to Charles and Ruby St. Hill. Her father was from British Guiana and her mother was from Barbados. In 1927, Shirley was sent to Barbados to live with her maternal grandmother. She received a good education from the British school system, which she later credited with providing her with a strong academic background.

In 1934, she rejoined her parents in New York. Shirley excelled in academics at Girls High School in Brooklyn from which she graduated in 1942. After graduation she enrolled in Brooklyn College where she majored in sociology. Shirley encountered racism at Brooklyn College and fought against it. When the black students at Brooklyn College were denied admittance to a social club, Shirley formed an alternative one. She graduated in 1946 with honors. During this time, it was difficult for black college graduates to obtain employment commensurate to their education. After being rejected by many companies, she obtained a job at the Mt. Calvary Childcare Center in Harlem.

In 1949, she married Conrad Chisholm, a Jamaican who worked as a private investigator. Shirley and her husband participated in local politics, helping form the Bedford-Stuyvesant political League. In addition to participating in politics, Chisholm worked in the field of day care until 1959. In 1960, she started the Unity Democratic Club. The Unity Club was instrumental in mobilizing black and Hispanic voters.

In 1964 Chisholm ran for a state assembly seat. She won and served in the New York General Assembly from 1964 to 1968. During her tenure in the legislature, she proposed a bill to provide state aid to day-care centers and voted to increase funding for schools on a per-pupil basis. In 1968, After finishing her term in the legislature, Chisholm campaigned to represent New York's Twelfth Congressional District. Her campaign slogan was "Fighting Shirley Chisholm--Unbought and Unbossed." She won the election and became the first African American woman elected to Congress.

During her first term in Congress, Chisholm hired an all-female staff and spoke out for civil rights, women's rights, the poor and against the Vietnam War. In 1970, she was elected to a second term. She was a sought-after public speaker and cofounder of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She remarked that, "Women in this country must become revolutionaries. We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and stereotypes."

On January 25, 1972, Chisholm announced her candidacy for president. She stood before the cameras and in the beginning of her speech she said,

"I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States. I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I am equally proud of that. I am not the candidate of any political bosses or special interests. I am the candidate of the people."

The 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami was the first major convention in which any woman was considered for the presidential nomination. Although she did not win the nomination, she received 151 of the delegates' votes. She continued to serve in the House of Representatives until 1982. She retired from politics after her last term in office. She has received many honorary degrees, and her awards include Alumna of the Year, Brooklyn College; Key Woman of the Year; Outstanding Work in the Field of Child Welfare; and Woman of Achievement.

Shirley Chisholm passed away on January 1, 2005.

Rosa Parks Bio

Most historians date the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States to December 1, 1955. That was the day when an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. This brave woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested and fined for violating a city ordinance, but her lonely act of defiance began a movement that ended legal segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.

Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama to James McCauley, a carpenter, and Leona McCauley, a teacher. At the age of two she moved to her grandparents' farm in Pine Level, Alabama with her mother and younger brother, Sylvester. At the age of 11 she enrolled in the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school founded by liberal-minded women from the northern United States. The school's philosophy of self-worth was consistent with Leona McCauley's advice to "take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they were."

Opportunities were few indeed. "Back then," Mrs. Parks recalled in an interview, "we didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down." In the same interview, she cited her lifelong acquaintance with fear as the reason for her relative fearlessness in deciding to appeal her conviction during the bus boycott. "I didn't have any special fear," she said. "It was more of a relief to know that I wasn't alone."

After attending Alabama State Teachers College, the young Rosa settled in Montgomery, with her husband, Raymond Parks. The couple joined the local chapter of the NAACP and worked quietly for many years to improve the lot of African-Americans in the segregated south.

"I worked on numerous cases with the NAACP," Mrs. Parks recalled, "but we did not get the publicity. There were cases of flogging, peonage, murder, and rape. We didn't seem to have too many successes. It was more a matter of trying to challenge the powers that be, and to let it be known that we did not wish to continue being second-class citizens."

The bus incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The association called for a boycott of the city-owned bus company. The boycott lasted 382 days and brought Mrs. Parks, Dr. King, and their cause to the attention of the world. A Supreme Court Decision struck down the Montgomery ordinance under which Mrs. Parks had been fined, and outlawed racial segregation on public transportation.

Rosa Parks passed away on October 24, 2005 at the age of 92.

List of Names for the New School Revied by the Superintendent Committee

April, 2006

1. Jack J. Capon School – Jack Capon Learning Academy
2. Ruby Bridges Elementary School
3. Horizon School
4. Jack London Elementary
5. Woodler
6. Bruce Elementary
7. Rainbow
8. Bearstain Elementary
9. Eagle Claw / Ms Muchhisunl
10. Millstock, Woodler, Mariner School, Elvis, Zorro, Columbus
11. Coretta Scott King
12. Rosa Parks Elementary
13. Andy Pagano
14. Eldridge School
15. Rising Star Elementary
16. Woodstock Elementary
17. Bay Port Elementary or Academy
18. Working and Learning School
19. Millstock
20. Progressive Fair Elementary School
21. Sojourner) Truth School
22. Barbara Lee Elementary
23. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary
24. Poplar Elementary
25. New Woodstock School
26. Grant Brandes
27. West End or West Island Elementary
28. Oprah Winfrey or Winfrey Academy
29. West Port Elementary
30. Shirley Chisholm Elementary
31. Hillary Clinton
32. Ardella Dailey Academy
33. Millwood Elementary
34. Phoenix Islander
35. Neptune Elementary
36. Frederick Douglass Elementary
37. West End Elementary
38. Colin Powell
39. Don Grant
40. Littlejohn Elementary School
41. Dailey Elementary School
42. Davenport Elementary School
43. Larry Dulay Itliong
44. Alameda Star Elementary
45. Barbara McClintock Elementary
46. United We Stand Divided We Fall
47. The Johnson School

Strategic Significance: Goal Goal #12 - Communications and Community Engagement

8. PUBLIC HEARING: Action of Superintendent's Recommendation Regarding the Termination of Fourteen (14) Employees as a Result of Reduction in Service