Barbara Henry taught Ruby Bridges at William Frantz. Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Henry relocated to New Orleans after her husband’s job relocated the family there. Mrs. Henry did not fit in with the staff at William Frantz. She had a Northern accent, opposed segregation, and willingly taught Bridges once she arrived at William Frantz.

Mrs. Henry was a kind and loving teacher and was one of the first white adults with whom Bridges forged a trusting and positive relationship. She contributed excerpts to Through My Eyes in which she expresses her care and concern for Ruby. Mrs. Henry “tried to explain integration more than once,” particularly the fact that none of the resulting chaos was the child’s fault (43).

Mrs. Henry left Louisiana after Bridges’s first-grade year. She moved back North and awaited the birth of her first child. Henry and Bridges had no way to communicate until 1995 when Bridges’s child psychologist who took notes on her published The Story of Ruby Bridges. Mrs. Henry contacted Bridges through the publisher and the two women reconnected.

Dr. Robert Coles was a child psychologist in New Orleans who took an interest in the children experiencing racist hatred during the integration process. He worked with Bridges, the three girls who integrated McDonogh No. 19, and the white children whose parents did not withdraw them from school in protest of integration. He compiled work on people he identified as “children of crisis” (46).

Coles visited Bridges at her family home, where he and his wife became welcome guests. He often asked Bridge to draw and explain pictures of herself, people she knew, and her school. Coles wrote about Ruby in several publications and in 1995, he published a children’s book about her called The Story of Ruby Bridges. This publication popularized Bridges’s story for a new generation of Americans.