Ruby Bridges Walk with Her mural
Pops Peterson's "Walk with Her" mural in the Jubilee Hill neighborhood of Pittsfield. Image courtesy the artist

On the 61st anniversary of her iconic walk to school, ‘Rainbow Ruby’ Bridges makes a symbolic splash on Pittsfield’s West Side

After his own long search for belonging, local artist Pops Peterson's 'Walk with Her' offers it to others by way of a vibrant, larger-than-life mural.

PITTSFIELD — As a kid, Pops Peterson searched for images of people who looked like him — reflected in the world in which he was growing up — and found them few and far between. Peterson was a teenager during the height of the Civil Rights era, and the images of Black people he did encounter were more often than not controversial. This past week, the local artist made a symbolic step toward creating a different future for the next generation of kids on Pittsfield’s West Side, through the gift of his art.

“The pain is real to me — it’s bottled up, and then it comes out — [and] if I had a different experience growing up, I wouldn’t be carrying all that pain with me,” he said of growing up in a world that saw the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the death of four Black schoolgirls in a Birmingham church basement, and the firebombing of Malcolm X’s house (in the same Queens neighborhood where Peterson lived as child). “You have to keep moving forward and make your own happiness,” Peterson said of his mindset over the nearly seven decades he’s lived through as a Black man in America.

Pops Peterson. Photo courtesy the artist

For the individual who has been reinventing Norman Rockwell’s iconic images for close to a decade, a literally larger-than-life mural — an eternally hopeful image, welcoming passersby to the city’s Jubilee Hill neighborhood — is as symbolic as it is apropos.

“When the neighborhood below Jubilee Hill was razed for urban renewal, the tenants had to bravely walk on in their lives, much like little Ruby Bridges, whose historic walk to school at the age of six changed the world and inspired generations,” Peterson explains in his artist statement. As to the overarching goal? “If this mural encourages one soul to be brave and strong, to face their fears and keep moving past their pain and troubles, then ‘Walk with Her’ will be truly beautiful.”

The timing could not have been more serendipitous. Sixty-one years ago, on November 14, 1960, 6-year-old Ruby Bridges became the first African American child to attend the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. Norman Rockwell depicted this historic moment in his 1964 painting “The Problem We All Live With.” The painting, part of the permanent collection at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, not only captured an ugly chapter in American history but also stood to catapult America out of segregation and toward an integrated future.

“The Problem Persists 1964–2014” by Pops Peterson, part of his ‘Reinventing Rockwell’ series. Image courtesy the artist

Immediately following the 2014 riots in Ferguson, Missouri, Peterson tackled this very subject matter in his work “The Problem Persists 1964–2014” (or “It’s Still Happening”). Peterson took Rockwell’s original image of Ruby Bridges — shown being escorted to school by two U.S. marshals — and superimposed it over a composite made of newspaper images depicting the detritus following Ferguson. “No one should have to walk through a war zone to go to school,” a teary Peterson told The Edge in 2018. His addition of a shadow, behind the young girl, was his way of both honoring and depicting the past and present racial unrest in this country.

Finding a sense of home, of belonging, has been integral to Peterson’s life and work. After being raised by his mother in the Congregational church, he eventually left it in his teens. Wanting to go back in his 20s, Peterson found his way to Harlem, where the preacher’s message from the pulpit revolved around curing homosexuals. “I’m out of here,” he said, vowing not to return. Fast forward a few decades, and he stumbled upon a Congregational church (with a gay minister!) just 30 seconds from his place of business. During the height of the COVID pandemic, he began attending virtual services — eventually welling up and crying through each one — until one day it hit him: “I thought I had left the church, but the church kicked me out,” he said of his epiphany that the one place he had grown up embracing in his mind and heart as home, came with conditions. Peterson ultimately talked this over with the minister at his new church, Rev. Brent Damrow of First Congregational Church of Stockbridge, when they met face-to-face. Peterson said, “Look, I would love to join this church if you like me the way I am — from sexuality to skepticism.”

And Damrow said, “Yes, we want you.”

Pops Peterson stands in front of his “Walk with Her” mural in Pittsfield. Photo courtesy the artist

Peterson is happy to have found a place where he belongs, “where I don’t have to pretend to be anybody, I’m not the wrong color, I’m not the wrong sexuality, and it’s just a wonderful thing,” he said of having overcome a lifetime of residual pain — not by continuing to sublimate his feelings, but rather by reflecting, and now acting, on them.

“We have brought ‘Rainbow Ruby’ to Pittsfield to inspire a new generation,” he said of creating a space where everyone is welcome, hence the inclusive rainbow palette.

Pops Peterson’s “Walk with Her” mural in Pittsfield. Photo courtesy the artist

“Rainbow Ruby” officially splashed onto the scene this past Wednesday. The project, devised by West Side Legends — a grassroots cultural community group of people who grew up on the west side of Pittsfield — came to fruition around a common goal: to help bring beauty, art, scholarship, and hopefully affordable housing to what once was one of the city’s most sought-after neighborhoods.

Peterson does not begrudge his past; in fact, he has allowed it to motivate him to succeed, overcome, and lift others up, one by one. “I’m thrilled I was invited to put Ruby on the wall … and we’re asking people to [walk with her], an icon of freedom … [who] will bring beauty and color to this fabulous west side of Pittsfield for many years to come.”

DIRECTIONS TO THE MURAL: From North Street, head west on Columbus Avenue three blocks to Center Street (the Fire Department is on the right). At Center Street, turn left and bear right at the fork (onto College Way). Look for the concrete retaining wall with the mural on your right. Parking is available one block beyond the mural on Dewey Avenue; use caution as there are no sidewalks.