Over two hundred Englewood Elementary students and their teachers stepped out in purple Friday morning, with flags and pom-poms in hand, as they circled their school.

They were one of eleven elementary schools in the Salem-Keizer School District participating in the Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day. Some 3,200 students participated in total.

Ruby Bridges became a defining figure of the Civil Rights Movement when, at just 6 years old, she walked into an all-white elementary school in New Orleans for her first day of class on Nov. 14, 1960. Escorted by U.S. Marshals, her entry was met by a crowd of furious segregationist protesters.

She was the first Black student in the South to integrate a white school. Bridges is now 71.

The walks honor Ruby Bridges’ contribution to desegregation, an

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