The Long Walk to School: This is how we were educated

At the age of 9, Ruth loved school. She didn't much care for the walk she had to make to get there every day, however, and didn't really enjoy the chores that she and her sisters had to do each day as well. Racial segregation was alive and well in those days and white Americans kept African Americans in a subordinate status by denying them equal access to public facilities, such as buses, theaters and restaurants. When allowed into auditoriums and theaters, blacks occupied separate sections. They also attended segregated schools and churches, like Ruth and her family. But this was how life was in 1933, at school, in the community and around the farm where she lived and played. Read her absorbing story here, to get a feel for what life was like in the United States not so very long ago.