“We pass racism on to our children, Bridges said. “And it continues to grow.” Bridges spoke about her brother, who was killed in 1993 at the age of 20.

“My brother was shot 11 times by someone who looked exactly like him. We do not live in a world where we need to only trust people who look like us,” Bridges said.

Currently, Bridges travels around the country to lecture at schools about racism.

She coauthored a book with Agee Professor of Social Ethics Robert Coles and in 1999, published her own book, Through My Own Eyes.

Bridges said she uses her own experience to focus on teaching children.

After she spoke about her second-grade teacher, who was reluctant to teach a black girl, a second-grader in the audience commented that he too had a mean teacher.

“Do you have a question you want to ask me?” asked Bridges.

“Did third grade get any better?” the student responded.

Bridges smiled and reassured him, before closing with what she described as her motto—words that received a standing ovation.

“Racism is a grown-up disease—let’s stop using our kids to spread it,” she said.