NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A key figure in the New Orleans civil rights movement will deliver the keynote address during online graduation ceremonies at Tulane University.
Ruby Bridges will speak during the university’s unified commencement event on Saturday, May 22, the university announced in a news release.
Bridges was 6 years old when she enrolled in 1960 as the first Black student at a New Orleans elementary school. She was escorted past crowds screaming racist slurs, an event memorialized in Norman Rockwell’s famous painting “The Problem We All Live With.”
Tulane’s large, unified commencement ceremony will be online due to the COVID-19 epidemic. Smaller, in-person ceremonies for individual schools and colleges within the university are also scheduled. The school-based ceremonies will take place at Yulman Stadium May 19 through May 21. There will be limited attendance and the ceremonies will be live-streamed, according to the university.
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