The Kamala Harris-Ruby Bridges Meme Is Powerful and Polarizing

Bridges integrated schools 60 years ago this week while, in 2020, Harris integrated the vice presidency

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris speaks at the Chase Center before President-elect Joe Biden’s address to the nation on November 7, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware. Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

A meme of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris juxtaposed against the silhouette of an elementary-age Ruby Bridges has understandably gone viral after history was made last Saturday. For many people, the meme represents the powerful contributions of Black girls and Black women to our very concept of freedom and democracy. Others, however, question the appropriateness of linking the two.

The image, which is a T-shirt design created by artist Bria Goeller, bites off of a treasured Norman Rockwell painting depicting a six-year-old Bridges walking into her first day of school as the first Black child in the then all-White William Frantz Elementary in New Orleans in 1960. Bridges’ image is layered with an image of a high-heeled Harris walking with power and intent. The implied connection between the two trailblazers is that Bridges, as a child, greatly contributed to Harris’…