Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery at Little Rock Central High School in 1997. She was remorseful over the way she had treated Eckford and was haunted by the fact that her children would one day see her in that infamous photo. In 1997, she shared the Father Joseph Biltz Awardâpresented by the National Conference for Community and Justiceâwith Hazel Bryan Massery, a then-segregationist student at Central High School who appeared in several of the 1957 photographs screaming at the young Elizabeth. She’d 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.’’ The poster continued to hang in the office of Central’s principal, Nancy Rousseau, though more as an ideal than a reflection of reality. Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery at Little Rock Central High School in 1997. He didn’t move. When the rest of the group arrived, they, too, were all turned away from the school. “They feel like I’m saying that what happened, it’s all over with and there are no repercussions. Should anyone say something nasty at her, she counselled Elizabeth, pretend not to hear them. Finally, on September 24, President Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to accompany them inside the building and the nine students were formally able to begin attending classes. Like most children in the Deep South, Eckford went to a segregated school. She steadied herself, then walked up to another soldier. Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery at Little Rock Central High School in 1997. Hazel Bryan Massery (born c. 1941 or January 1942) was a student at Little Rock Central High School during the Civil Rights Movement.She was depicted in an iconic photograph that showed her shouting at Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, during the school integration crisis.. Little Rock High School incident. But their story had only just begun. Reconciled after forty years, the two realized they had lots in common, including their children and a fondness for flowers and thrift stores. On her first morning of school, September 4 1957, Elizabeth Eckfordâs primary concern was looking nice. My mother was making sure everybodyâs hair looked right and everybody had their lunch money and their notebooks and things. Because she’d rarely been identified by name, Hazel got little mail. They struck up a very unlikely friendship, and began attending events together, and touring around schools to talk to children about race and tolerance. She’s caught mid-vowel, with her mouth gapingly, ferociously open. That itâs previous sins could be forgiven. “-frica!” Will Counts, a photographer for the Arkansas Democrat, had his picture. Discussing race relations in a group of 20 every Monday night for 12 weeks was a revelation to each: Elizabeth had never realised how paralysed by anger and hate she had been, and hoped to leech some of that rage. Jacoway had interviewed dozens of participants, including Elizabeth (in 1994) and Hazel (in 1996). Central was the first high school in a major southern city set to be desegregated since the United States Supreme Court had ruled three years earlier in Brown vs Board of Education that separate and ostensibly equal education was unconstitutional. Despite the tricky lighting, her face is perfectly exposed: the early morning September sun shines on her like a spotlight. One was trying to go to school; the other didnât want her there. She returned to the same home she grew up in where she raised two sons alone and largely surviving on disability checks. She continued down Park. Other soldiers moved over to assist him. David Margolick, The Telegraph Elizabeth Eckford (right) attempts to enter Little Rock High School on Sept. 4, 1957, while Hazel Bryan (left) and other segregationists protest. (Will Counts Collection, Indiana University Archives) Will Counts was thinking similar thoughts. The picture itself was never discussed. It is an intriguing story with many sidebars. Now, though, she insisted that it carry a caveat, one she devised herself. Go back to A-”. The message puzzled Hazel, who had not been consulted about either the reprinting or the disclaimer. Eckford was accused of being naïve or too forgiving, while Bryan was accused of being a phony opportunist. The picture had almost immediately become a notorious symbol of white hatred that followed both Eckford and Bryan throughout their lives. As she passed the Mobil station and came nearer, she could see the white students filtering unimpeded past the soldiers. And maybe he was right. It was gold, and relatively inconspicuous, particularly against Central’s ochre bricks: “True reconciliation can occur only when we honestly acknowledge our painful, but shared, past.” – Elizabeth Eckford. Via the Telegraph By David Margolick. Bettmann/Getty ImagesElizabeth Eckford walking to Little Rock Central High School. Will Counts Collection/Indiana University Archives. For her part, Hazel felt under assault. Hazel Bryan Massery (born c.â1941 or January 1942 ) was a student at Little Rock Central High School during the Civil Rights Movement. Early in 2000 Cathy Collins, the sociologist who had conducted the racial healing seminar Elizabeth and Hazel had attended, invited them for catfish at a local restaurant. In 1997, Elizabeth Eckford shared the Father Joseph Biltz Award (presented by the National Conference for Community and Justice) with Hazel Bryan Massery, a segregationist classmate who appears in the famous Will Counts photograph, and during the reconciliation rally of 1997, the two former adversaries made speeches together. A few letters, all from the North, all critical, were sent to her care of Central. At the bottom of the poster is a gold sticker, which reads âTrue reconciliation can occur only when we honestly acknowledge our painful, but shared, past.â. Eckford suffered from depression throughout her life and she had various stints in college and then the Army. Dubbed âreconciliationâ, it was a symbol that America was moving on from its dark past. That's the case of Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bran, protagonists of a photograph that shows the true colors of racism that still represents the worst side of humanity. Liverpool vs Everton, Premier League: What time is Merseyside Derby kick-off, what TV channel is it on and what is our prediction? ‘‘There wasn’t much conversation about it, really,’’ replied Hazel. The two enrolled in a seminar on racial healing offered by Little Rock’s racial and cultural diversity commission. In the spring of 1999 I travelled to Little Rock and arranged to meet Elizabeth and Hazel at a barbecue. At the Barnes & Noble in Little Rock, she perused the sections on black history. Next, read about the history behind the iconic “Saigon Execution” photo. They heard Maya Angelou read poetry together. It was a practice borne of tradition, pride, and necessity: homemade was cheaper, and it spared black children the humiliation of having to ask to try things on in the segregated department stores downtown. Then, later that month, came the poster signing. In 1963, she tracked down Elizabeth Eckford and called her to apologize for her behavior six years earlier. Her father, Oscar, was a dining car maintenance worker, and her mother Birdie was a teacher at a segregated school for the blind and deaf. It makes me sad for them, it makes me sad for the future students at our school, and for the history books, because I’d like a happy ending. All this do-gooding with blacks, her husband, Antoine, joked, was really her way of atoning for the picture. Hazel read them, found their critical tone surprising, then gave them little mind. “I think she still… at times we have a little… well, the honeymoon is over and now we’re getting to take out the garbage,” she said. In gym class the next day, someone threw a rock at her. She never married. They posed for a âreconciliationâ poster together. “I just had hoped that I could show this picture and say, ‘This happened, and that happened, and now…’ and there is no ‘now’,” she said. When it comes down to it, Counts’s famous photograph of Elizabeth Eckford is really more of Hazel Bryan: it is on Hazel that the eyes land, and linger. Lots of white people lined Park Street as Elizabeth headed towards the school. Almost from the outset, Hazel encountered hostility from whites. People in black Little Rock knew that the Eckford girls were expert seamstresses; practically everything they wore they made themselves, and not from the basic patterns of McCall’s but from the more complicated ones in Vogue. She was stationed at bases around the country, from Indiana to Georgia to Alabama, before she finally returned to Little Rock in 1974. “Turn that thing off!” she shouted. What she’d done that morning had been so banal — “just hamming up and being recognised – getting attention” – that it hadn’t been worth remembering, she insisted. Nothing went wrong, there were no catcalls. The short story? Elizabeth became, as Ted Poston of the New York Post put it, “probably the most widely known high school student in the whole United States”, with the unidentified white girl to her running a close second. Then, check out the epic story behind the iconic photo of Elvis shaking hands with President Richard Nixon. The source was Elizabeth, and it was predictable, for she had always been the harder sell. The dress Elizabeth Eckford wore on her first day of school at the newly integrated Little Rock Central High School. Click. She took black teenagers who rarely had left Little Rock on field trips, climbing Pinnacle Mountain and picking strawberries. Though referenced as a student at the school by some, she is not listed as a student in the LRCHS annual for the 1957/58 school year. Bryan and Eckford became friends 40 years later when they both attended an anniversary commemoration event. Later that day, he spoke to both women. Hazel Bryan stands behind her screaming. Just behind her, also 15 years old, was another young woman whose face is contorted with anger. Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery at Little Rock Central High School in 1997. Hazel Bryan and Elizabeth Eckford, Little Rock, Arkansas, September 1957. It hits her from the side, painting her face in a stark chiaroscuro that makes it look more demonic still. Itâs an iconic image of the American civil rights movement, one thatâs been reprinted in newspapers and history books over the last fifty years. Her usual wariness, vigilance, and perfectionism could be kept at bay only so long. The names Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery may not be well known, but the image of them from September 1957 surely is: a black high school girl, dressed in white, walking stoically in front of Little Rock Central High School, and a white girl standing directly behind her, face twisted in hate, screaming racial epithets. Then there were her clothes. The states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Kentucky all prohibited black and white children from attending the same school. The fissure was painfully apparent that March, 18 months into their relationship, when they met Linda Monk, a lawyer turned writer who hoped to write a book about the women. And, putting her course work in child psychology to use, she counselled young unwed mothers, many of them black, on parenting skills. Elizabeth suffered disproportionately. And they wanted to get really close to Elizabeth – close enough to let her know that they didn’t want her in their school. We can only improve race relations if we as people realize we all have the same equal opportunities. As for the poster itself, Hazel thought the original picture was too small: as much as she hated it, she believed it couldn’t and shouldn’t be hidden. Still imagining Hazel as a blonde, Elizabeth was taken a bit aback to behold a brunette. But the two eventually became friends. Fifty-eight years ago on September 4, 1957 Elizabeth Eckford attended Little Rock High School in Arkansas. The two were never able to mend the tension and their friendship sadly went downhill. When Elizabeth cut the ribbon at the dedication of the new visitor centre on September 20, Counts looked on. Together, Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan starred in one of the most memorable photographs of the Civil Rights era. But as she herself approached, three Guardsmen, two with rifles, held out their arms, directing her to her left, to the far side of Park. Three young girls, barely into their teens, fell in directly behind Elizabeth. Together, Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan starred in one of the most memorable photographs of the Civil Rights era. Her mother had done her hair the night before; an ⦠12:01AM BST 09 Oct 2011. Elizabeth Eckford (right) attempts to enter Little Rock High School on Sept. 4, 1957, while Hazel Bryan (left) and other segregationists protest. One girl, Hazel Bryan, looked livid, her face poisoned with hate. They were clearly together, and clearly students; two of them, like Elizabeth, carried books. Eckford took correspondence and night classes during the 1958 school year to earn enough credits to receive her high school diploma. Author David Margolick explores the tumultuous lives of â and off-and-on relationship between â Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan, two women made ⦠In the years after Little Rock, Hazel had become increasingly political, branching out into peace activism and social work. In the forefront, a 15-year-old girl named Elizabeth Eckford is being hurled insults at by a white mob behind her as she is denied entrance to the school. Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan. Her whole outlook towards black people had changed. And these two women actually looked comfortable with each other; they weren’t just putting on a show. Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan reunited at the 40th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine. Race in US History . They wanted to be at the very centre of things. And dressing that morning as she had, trying to look all grown up and sexed up, she had masked how young she really was. The names Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery may not be well known, but the image of them from September 1957 surely is: a black high school girl, dressed in white, walking stoically in front of Little Rock Central High School, and a white girl standing directly behind her, face twisted in hate, screaming racial epithets. He was thinking not so much about making great art, but about making a point, about the power of human beings to grow, and to forgive. She was stationed at bases around the country, from Indiana to Georgia to Alabama, before she finally returned to Little Rock in 1974. Elizabeth Eckford was born in Little Rock in 1942. Some were Central students, others adults. Add or Edit Playlist. Her mother had done her hair the night before; an elaborate two-hour⦠“Two, four, six, eight! Elizabeth had forgiven Hazel, but that forgiveness, she concluded, had been obtained under false pretences: Hazel hadn’t fully owned up to her past. The True Story Behind The Most Iconic Image Of The Civil Rights Movement. They started shouting at her. Hazel Bryanâs parents pulled her from the newly integrated Central High School and instead enrolled her in a rural school closer to her home. Add or Edit Playlist. A crowd had started to form behind Elizabeth, and her knees began to shake. For a moment, the two women faced one another. The story and picture led off the Little Rock coverage in Paris Match. Lynch her!” “No nigger bitch is going to get in our school!” “Go home, nigger!” Looking for a friendly face, Elizabeth turned to an old white woman. A large crowd showed up. Collins planned to write her dissertation on the two of them, and wanted to discuss the project. When she tried to squeeze past him, he raised his carbine. During the reconciliation rally of 1997, the two women made ⦠Eckford felt as she grew stronger in her life that she could not ignore the racism and the truth that Bryan still longed to sweep under the rug. Elizabeth had a different problem with it: she thought the title – “Reconciliation” — overstated; there was a big difference between that and forgiveness. Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Byran pose outside of Little Rock Central High, 1997, in a picture that would once more sweep America The picture was immediately everywhere. Will Counts Collection/Indiana University Archives Will Counts Collection/Indiana University Archives In September 1982, Elizabeth told People her life was almost non-existent and she lived âlike a hermit and a recluse.â âIâve got to get to the point where I can talk about this. Because she did not have a phone in her home, Eckford never received a call from Daisy Bates, the head of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP, telling the students to come to her house prior to heading to the school. I especially enjoyed my history and English classes,” Elizabeth reported after that first day. Elizabeth Ann Eckford (born October 4, 1941) is ... 1997, she shared the Father Joseph Biltz Awardâpresented by the National Conference for Community and Justiceâwith Hazel Bryan Massery, a then-segregationist student at Central High School who appeared in several of the 1957 photographs screaming at the young Elizabeth. Elizabeth Eckford walking to Little Rock Central High School. Featured Image her first morning of school, September 4 1957, Elizabeth Eckfordâs primary concern was looking nice. Newly retired from a professorship at Indiana University, the photographer had returned to Arkansas to chronicle the changes at Central since 1957. Over the next several months, they went to a home and garden show, and bought daylilies and irises together. At that instant, and in perpetuity, Hazel Bryan, always the performer, has the stage completely to herself. What History Got Wrong About The Hanging Gardens Of Babylon, Mummified Monkey Found In Old Minneapolis Department Store, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. Her eyes narrowed, her brow furrowed, her teeth clenched, Hazel shouted: “Go home, nigger! Bryan, however, had undergone an intellectual awaking after high school, in large part due to watching the struggle of Martin Luther King and the other civil rights protesters on television. One programme focused on self-esteem for teenagers. Counts had already scouted possible locations to shoot the pair. What happened fifty-eight years ago between Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan is still going on today with police brutality, protest, and discrimination. Hazel Bryan became the face of racial intolerance when she snarled at Elizabeth Eckford as she entered school in Little Rock in 1957. But she did finally get quiet and we had family prayer. “After you saw [Counts’s] pictures in the paper, you don’t remember how you felt or what people close to you talked about?” she asked Hazel incredulously at one point. In mid-November, Hazel invited Elizabeth and two of her sister Anna’s grandchildren to her house. That girl was Hazel Bryan. They feel like I’m wiping away the past.”. That 40-year-old picture of hate assailing grace â which had gnawed at Ms. Massery for decades â can now be wiped clean, and replaced by a snapshot of two friends. The initial reports from inside were encouraging. As the two shared more time and platforms, Elizabeth spotted what she perceived to be discrepancies, inconsistencies and evasions, in Hazel’s story. Race in US History . To her, it was a sign that everything was all right. The “reconciliation” poster was popular enough to warrant another printing. As for Hazel, she was naive about how bitter some blacks were; here was a problem one couldn’t simply wish away, or eliminate with soothing words. That young womanâs name was Hazel Bryan, and her face became the face that symbolized segregation in the southern United States. Once there, she encountered the screaming mob of white people and the Arkansas National Guard, set in place by Governor Orval Faubus to prevent the black students from entering the school. It was, I thought, a friendly chat. They shopped for fabrics together. Long-distance telephone calls for Elizabeth came into her grandfather’s store from Chicago, Detroit, New York, even Oklahoma. “You’re mighty brave to face the cameras again,” she told Hazel as the three visitors entered the house. YouTubeElizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan reunited at the 40th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine. The piece linked below was published here on August 19th post. "On the morning of September 4th, my mother was doing what she usually did. They agreed to meet. Others played their own small parts in the picture, but “the mouth” she later said, “was mine”. Both Eckford and Bryan lived relatively quiet lives, with Eckford giving the occasional interview but largely opting out of the spotlight as a member of the Little Rock Nine. In the fall of 1957, Elizabeth was among the nine black students who had enlisted, then been selected, to enter Little Rock Central High School. Hazel Bryan stands behind her screaming. Watching it was, for him, a near-religious experience, one of the most thrilling moments in his life. Now, as Elizabeth continued walking south down Park, more and more of the people lining the street fell in behind her. But Jacoway had another idea: subordinating the original photograph to a contemporary picture of Elizabeth and Hazel together – one symbolising the racial progress Little Rock had made. Hazel had had enough. Elizabeth had to be coaxed into participating in the 40th anniversary celebrations in 1997, even though they promised to be the most glorious yet: President Bill Clinton would preside. But ⦠She attended Horace Mann High School and transferred to Little Rock Central High School in 1957 as one of the Little Rock Nine. However, she dropped out a year later to get married. But their classmates were tickled to be sitting alongside two such famous antagonists and, week by week, watching them bond. Having pondered Hazel’s face for decades, Jacoway had been expecting an uneducated hick and was surprised by how articulate and remorseful she was. She had picked up no bad vibes that evening, but Elizabeth had: Hazel seemed very much on edge. Though all of The Nine got letters, Elizabeth got far and away the most, as many as 50 a day. When she tried to get in around them, they moved to block her way. Over the years, Bryan had worked to make up for her past behavior, becoming involved with organizations that helped minority students and unwed mothers. Elizabeth gradually became involved, meeting planners of the visitor centre the National Park Service planned to open in the old Mobil station near the school. Elizabeth Eckford was one of the 9 brave teenagers to attend this desegregated school, and she soon became the face of the desegregation movement. One of the fascinating stories to come out of the reunion was the apology that Hazel Bryan Massery made to Elizabeth Eckford for a terrible moment caught forever by the camera. The names Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery may not be well known, but the image of them from September 1957 surely is: a black high school girl, dressed in white, walking stoically in front of Little Rock Central High School, and a white girl standing directly behind her, face twisted in hate, screaming racial epithets. Aimee Lamoureux is a writer based in New York City. Australian Open 2021: Match schedule, latest results and how to watch on TV in the UK, What's it really like to be on stage at the Sydney Opera House? Elizabeth did not let on that she and Hazel were having problems; the two of them were “very close”, she said. Bryan later in life sought-out Elizabeth Eckford and the fairy tale ending found them friends for life. But strains soon surfaced. “Everything will be all right, for the majority of the white students themselves are all right.” Soon, though, there were disquieting signs. Civic activist Elizabeth Eckford was born on October 4, 1941 in Little Rock, Arkansas to Oscar Eckford, Jr. and Birdie Eckford. Maybe she had a block. “One Girl Runs Gauntlet of Hate”, shouted a headline in the Daily Express in London. Image . Soon, and most seriously, tensions developed with Elizabeth. Hazel was more forthright about where things stood between them, but still oblique. Or better yet, be nice, and put them to shame. I found out – with a walk-on role. Quietly, though, some considered the rapprochement, however lovely in principle, a triumph of sentimentality, wishful thinking, and marketing over reality. True reconciliation can occur only when we honestly acknowledge our painful, but shared, past, history behind the iconic “Saigon Execution” photo, epic story behind the iconic photo of Elvis shaking hands with President Richard Nixon. We don’t want to integrate!” they chanted. She read David Shipler’s study of black-white relations in America, A Country of Strangers, a book Elizabeth herself had helped inspire. “It’s very hard for me… and if there’s anything I could give you… if I could take it back… if I could…” She began to sob. In some segments of her own community, Elizabeth stood accused of whitewashing reality. Though both Hazel Bryanânow Masseryâand Elizabeth Eckford are still alive, itâs unclear if they will find that reconciliation during their lifetimes. “It’s very hard for me to sit there and listen to you, Elizabeth,” she said weakly. As linked as she became to the Little Rock Nine, then, Hazel did not in fact spend a single day inside Central with any of them. On the television as Elizabeth ate her breakfast, a newsman described large crowds gathering around Central.