"One was trying to go to school; the other didn’t want her there."

October 8, 2011 8:54 PM

Together, Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan starred in one of the most memorable photographs of the Civil Rights era. But their story had only just begun. “True reconciliation can occur only when we honestly acknowledge our painful, but shared, past.” – Elizabeth Eckford. (Hazel would) have liked to have had her own sticker, one that said, ‘‘True reconciliation can occur only when we honestly let go of resentment and hatred, and move forward.’’
posted by malibustacey9999 (15 comments total)

Wow. What an astounding and uncomfortable article.
posted by koeselitz at 9:05 PM on October 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

No kidding. I wasn't sure I wanted to read a treacly bit of sentiment about long-ago foes becoming BFFs....and that's not what it was at all. I give them huge props for even attempting it.
posted by rtha at 9:20 PM on October 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Interesting piece - I've read others that are far, far less charitable towards Hazel, whom they implied viewed the relationship - as an adult - as a gravy train she could ride when she started struggling financially and otherwise. I've also read other interviews where Elizabeth discusses some of their interaction that were much more upfront and frank than this.
posted by smoke at 9:22 PM on October 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

that's a great article. thanks.
posted by liza at 9:24 PM on October 8, 2011

Smoke, if you can find any of the links to the pieces you mention, that would be really interesting too.
posted by lollusc at 10:02 PM on October 8, 2011

I could swear I saw a video segment several years ago on this subject that more or less sounded like smoke's description. I can't for the life of me remember where I saw it. Youtube? PBS?
posted by 2N2222 at 11:30 PM on October 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

More detail on this long VF piece by the same author (I've jumped the link to page six, where the friendship starts heading downhill, but really the whole piece is so well worth reading).

You'll note this piece paints a much more ambiguous, three dimensional picture of both women. 2N222, I remember that doco, too - that's where I first found out about it, but I can't find it.

The other thing, I think that tends to be elided is how incredibly unhappy Elizabeth Eckford has been for most of her life, and only starting to feel better in recent years. It's inspiring on one level, and incredibly, horribly sad on another, how this one event has - in many ways - fractured if not broken this woman in many different ways. Society expects her to let it go, but paradoxically to carry what is a legacy of hate with her for eternity; the weight of being a symbol, and a chapter in a narrative we desperately wish was finished. Her pain and anguish is a living refutation that this is finished - it can't be finished.

We know her story, but for me over here in Australia, it makes me think about all the stories that weren't photographed - the people that didn't "make good" - whatever that could mean in this. The ones that aren't even here to tell their stories anymore.
posted by smoke at 2:31 AM on October 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

Thank you, smoke. I unsuccessfully tried to find more info to 'flesh out' the post. This was the first I'd heard of the Little Rock Nine, and my search terms didn't bring up anything other than a weak Wikipedia piece.

I've just read the Vanity Fair piece, and... words fail me. Such a terribly sad story, on so many levels.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 3:42 AM on October 9, 2011

Last week I showed my students (American, mostly white, mainly southern) the episode of Eyes on the Prize that covers the desegregation of schools after the Brown decision. They were shocked and upset at the anger of the white crowds. They wondered why nobody had ever taught them about this in their high school American history classes. If you've never seen it it's worth watching. Many libraries have copies of it. Another of the Little Rock 9, Melba Patillo Beals, has written a memoir about the events, Warriors Don't Cry.

I remember watching the events in Little Rock on the news with my mom, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother when I was 7. My mom, a good liberal, explained what was going on, and how wrong the white people were. I wish I could remember how her mother and grandmother reacted, those two proper old white ladies from Missouri who never left the house without hats and gloves.
posted by mareli at 6:39 AM on October 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Dr. King said more than once that Civil Rights would never happen until those generations that remembered slavery were dead and gone. This is chapter two, where the people who remember the emotional pain and fear of the process have to carry it forward until it, too has died.

I was in the first grade when they desegregated the schools in Selma, Alabama. We had one girl student come to the sixth grade that year, and she must have felt like Elizabeth, except that she was only 11 years old. The grown-ups were all up in arms, mostly because the damned Federal government had demonstrated that they would brook no foolishness on this and took away all of their "local power" to control anything. The State Troopers on horseback from the Edmund Pettus Bridge were nowhere to be seen.

We didn't make news that day, and by the time Christmas holidays had come and gone, it wasn't news anymore, anyway. Unlike Birmingham, with its dogs and firehoses, and Little Rock, with their attention-whoring teens, and the University of Alabama with Governor Wallace in the front door, we just kind of quietly accepted it, in a muttering, damn the gummint sort of way. The schools got integrated, there were some mild rough patches, and we got on with it.

I imagine that it was probably more like this in most of the rural hamlets of the South. But there had to be outrage in a few to get it done.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 8:16 AM on October 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

While it went smoothly in some places, in others it didn't. One of the things that happened was the growth of private schools, or segregation academies as they were called them back then. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of such schools were opened in the wake of desegregation. They were often given public school buildings, books, buses, teachers. Many of those schools still exist, they are still predominantly white.

I'd be happy to provide data if anyone is interested, memail me.
posted by mareli at 9:20 AM on October 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

I unsuccessfully tried to find more info to 'flesh out' the post. This was the first I'd heard of the Little Rock Nine, and my search terms didn't bring up anything other than a weak Wikipedia piece.

malibustacey9999, this 2007 post has more information about the Little Rock Nine, including some great in-thread links.

Also, Here's an NPR interview with the author .

And if you are interested in events of this era, this post has a lot of links to resources about the Civil Rights Movement.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:21 AM on October 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

we just kind of quietly accepted it, in a muttering, damn the gummint sort of way. The schools got integrated, there were some mild rough patches, and we got on with it.

This is a little bit of a tangent, but it occurred to me that one of the responses to desegregation was the founding of segregation academies, which allowed wealthier white families to flee the public school system entirely. A lot of these schools still exist today, although they now have minority students. My stepdad, who hails from a farm outside of Selma, is a graduate of this school, founded in 1965 (I looked for students of color in the pictures on their website, and can't find a single one, which is...interesting) and I briefly attended this school (I can't find specific evidence that it was founded as a seg academy, but the founding date, 1970, suggests it's a possibility) and this school (1959, and its Wikipedia entry is pretty explicit about the reasons for its founding).
posted by naoko at 11:27 AM on October 9, 2011

Selma had one advantage during this period that other towns did not: Craig Air Force Base. Even as the segregation academies were founded, the Air Force insisted that all military members enroll in the Dallas County Public School System. Over the years this rule was relaxed, and children of service members would attend Morgan Academy and Meadowview Christian School. The Catholic Church also had a day school for K-8, although it was not segregationist - cost was the determining factor.

By the time I graduated from Selma High School in 1976, my class of 415 seniors was about evenly divided. Once Craig AFB closed, the economy led to white flight from Selma. In 2010, the senior class had one white student.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 2:43 PM on October 9, 2011

Heh, my stepdad was class of '76 at Morgan. And he's in the Air Force, so my siblings and I attended a wide variety of schools throughout our many moves (on- and off-base public schools, evangelical schools, snooty prep schools, alternative hippie schools, etc.) - it would have been interesting in a different way if the requirement to use the public school system had stuck around (assuming this was a national policy and not just a Craig AFB thing...?)

Also, seconding mareli's shout-out to Eyes on the Prize. I watched it in high school - not in US History, but in an elective on the 60s, so unfortunately only a few of us saw it - and it really made an impression. Should be required viewing!
posted by naoko at 11:07 PM on October 9, 2011