"Racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using our children to spread it."
Bridges describing the mission of the group.
"Ruby Bridge's brother had died to drug related shooting in the area near William Frantz Elementry, in New Orleans. The neighborhood around William Frantz Elementry had high poverty and crime rates, and Ruby began to notice the issues facing children and adults in urban areas when she would drop off her brother's children at William Frantz Elementary every day. In order to help in the community, Bridges started volunteering at William Frantz because she didn't want the school to become segregated again as it was in 1964." In 1999, Bridges formed the Ruby Bridges Foundation, with the primary intiative "to create a school in the William Frantz Elementry building that will serve as a model for integration and equality in education". The Ruby Bridges Foundation is supposed to "help everyone embrace our racial and cultural differences so that we can move forward", according the Bridges." She is now the chair of the Ruby Bridges Foundation, which was formed to promote "The values of tolerance, respect, and appreciation of all differences." The Foundation wants everyone to embrace their racial and cultural differences so we can all move forward together.