She was the first African-American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on November 14, Bridges was the eldest of five children born to Abon and Lucille Bridges.
In , when she was six years old, her parents responded to a request from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACP and volunteered her to participate in the integration of the New Orleans school system, even though her father was hesitant. Bridges was born during the middle of the Civil Rights Movement.
Brown v. Board of Education was decided three months and twenty-two days before Bridges' birth. Though the Brown v. Board of Education decision was finalized in , southern states were extremely resistant to the decision that they must integrate for the six following years.
In , federal troops were ordered to Little Rock, Arkansas , to escort the Little Rock Nine students in combating violence that occurred as a result of the decision. Bridges attended a segregated kindergarten in Two of the six decided to stay at their old school, Bridges went to Frantz by herself, and three children were transferred to McDonogh No.
Bridges and her mother were escorted to school by four federal marshals during the first day that Bridges attended William Frantz Elementary. In the following days of that year, federal marshals continued to escort Bridges, though her mom stayed behind to take care of her younger siblings. Bridges' father was initially reluctant, but her mother felt strongly that the move was needed not only to give her own daughter a better education, but to "take this step forward Her mother finally convinced her father to let her go to the school.
