The weekend with Rudy Bridges

In a previous post,What Are We Learning During Black History Month?, I talked about how we should make the effort to learn about black history all the time vs the one month out of the year.  Well, that's exactly what we started doing at our church.  After we had our Black History program in February, we've been continuing to learn about black history throughout the year.  We dress up as someone in history and have a "guess who" type thing, some people read or write poems,  and we'll do plays and skits. 

The message, of course, is to learn about your history and to not let the color of your skin hinder you from all that you can accomplish.  People back then might not have known how things were going to change but they had to believe that there was a higher power that was going to deliver them from the oppression and cruelty they faced.

Yesterday, I let Cate have a turn.  I'll admit I've been a little slack with getting more people involved but we are still going.  We decided to let her be Rudy Bridges.  I surfed the web for pictures and inspiration and saw these:

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I tried to take inspiration from the real pic but we didn't have a gray skirt or dress.  We ended up looking more like the picture on the story book but with pigtails.

 

So here we are!  Little Rudy Bridges! 

 

 She already had this little white "little house on the prairie" dress.  I actually love it.  My husband, not so much.  He says it looks like an old slave dress, especially in some pictures we took by an old railroad depot.  I thought it fit perfectly with what we were trying to do, so I'm glad we still had it.  I found one of my old pink cardigans to wear over the dress.  Despite it being too hot outside, she didn't complain.  The hubs wasn't crazy about those socks and shoes either. LOL.  Clearly, little Rudy Bridges didn't have on socks and open toe sling backs but we improvised.  I think we did pretty good.

She was escorted down the middle of the church by the ushers. ( The US Marshalls)  When she made it to front she sat her "school bag" down and read this from an index card.

"People were yelling and throwing things, but I didn't cry.  Mama told me to pray on the way to school to protect me.  Only one teacher would teach me.  I was the first black child to attend an all white elementary school in the south.  Who am I?"

She did very good.  She's shy like me so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. 

What I wish I had a picture of to show you was our Pastor dressed as Harriet Tubman.  Now that was sight, especially when she is always dolled up.  I couldn't take a picture because I was introducing the acts and didn't have my camera.  However, that was a good one.  We've had a lot of participation in the church and everyone had gotten really creative coming up with ideas.  We've had Michele Obama escorted by security, Thurgood Marshall,  Madame C J Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks and many more. I am currently working on a skit for the little rock nine.  Of course, most of us older folks know about these things but we need to educate the younger generations and also let them know that God was the one that created the vision in the people, led the people, and delivered them.

"Same God right now.  Same God back then!"