Fifty-two years ago in the USA, a little black girl named Ruby Bridges arrived at her new primary school. The school was in New Orleans, Louisiana. As she walked toward the school's front door, an angry crowd of people shouted at her. United States marshals walked with her. A marshal is a police officer. They were there to protect the first grader. That's because the people didn't want Ruby to go inside the school. But the 6-year-old walked into the school anyway. As she did, she marched into history books. The day was Nov. 14, 1960. On that morning, little Ruby became one of the first African Americans to attend an all-white primary school in the South. Before then, the law in many states said that black children could not attend the same schools as white children. People of different races also had to use separate public restrooms. It was called segregation. That is when people of different races are kept separate. U.S. leaders worked to end segregation. They helped bring civil rights to all Americans. Those are the rights mean that all people should be treated equally. A few months before Ruby started school, a federal court   had just ordered an end to school segregation in New Orleans. By the time Ruby started the second grade, there were no more angry people outside her school. There were other African American students in her class. Today, children of all races go to school together. Bridges said she was never scared to go to school during the first grade. She wasn't really afraid and she didn't really know what was going on at the time. Why was Ruby Bridges famous in the American history?
She served on the U.S. federal court. She got along well with the U.S. marshals. She helped end school segregation in New Orleans. She brought all rights to the Americans with U.S. leaders.