Back in March [2020], I was sitting in front of my television—on lockdown because of the virus, like everybody else—and witnessed this young man's brutal death, Mr. Floyd, right in front of my face, like so many people did. And I was so disturbed by it and didn't know how to react or what to do. ... The majority of my time I talk to kids and explain to them that racism has no place in ... our country. And yet they were witnessing this.

I was very moved by what I saw after his death. I saw young people take to the streets, and I felt like the torch has been passed, and that now they had a cause to get behind.

When Dr. King was assassinated, ... we should have picked that torch up and kept it moving. Even my own experience—after going into the school—it was something that happened, no one talked about it in my community, in my neighborhood. It was swept under the rug and life went on.

I'm happy now to see that, all of a sudden, activism is cool again. And it should have been, from 1960 until today. We didn't do a very good job of passing those lessons on to that generation.

We cannot be a hopeless people. We have to be hopeful. And we do have a lot of work to do. We all saw that. This last election showed us just how divided this country really is. After President Obama was elected, it seemed that racism really raised its ugly head again. I think having a Black man elected as President just riled that element up all over again. I believe they felt that we cannot have this happen, and yet it did. And so all we needed was for someone to come along and add fuel to that fire. And I think that that's why we are so divided today.

— Ruby Bridges, interviewed by Charlayne Hunter-Gault on the PBS Newshour, January 14th, 2021. Ruby Bridges was 6 years old in 1960 when, under the protection of federal marshals, she became the first black child to integrate her elementary school in New Orleans.