C.O.W.S. The narrative concludes with the pair’s discordant severance. "—Louis Begley, author of Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters. Oprah’s Book Club ... $12.99; Publisher Description. She was forever talking about “standing on the shoulders of giants,” but in this instance she’d been as cold as she could be. Bettmann/Getty Images Elizabeth Eckford walking to Little Rock Central High School. Join the Monitor's book discussion on Facebook and Twitter. “Remorse. Elizabeth Eckford was one of nine black teenagers to integrate Little Rock, Arkansas', Central High School in 1957, and the photo shows her walking a gauntlet of shouting, taunting white students and adults. I'd seen the picture growing up and then happened to see an Oprah special years ago on the people from famous pictures and I remembered these two ladies being on it and that Hazel (the white girl screaming obscenities) had apologized to Elizabeth. Hazel Bryan can be seen behind her in the crowd. Terish Ladell Williams. “Obviously you do,” she quickly added, answering her own question before Elizabeth could, suggesting that this somehow reflected weakness. Two women, one black, the other white, from an iconic Civil-Rights photo became friends years later only to have that friendship tested and questioned by the talk show host. "Elizabeth and Hazel" raises the specter that some damage doesn't heal, a notion profoundly unsettling to the story we Americans tell about ourselves. She then repeated herself for emphasis: “They...are...friends. Afterward, Elizabeth felt that Oprah had gone out of her way to be hateful. That photo. Aged 20, Hazel called Elizabeth to tearfully apologize, opening the gates for a highly-publicized relationship to form. Elizabeth, characteristically, was more wary, but she was also curious, and she agreed. Oprah Winfrey wanted to do a show on the Little Rock Nine in 1996. She severed what had been her … The photograph was promptly blown up into a poster and placed on sale at the visitor center across from Central. Hazel Bryan is the girl on the left of the photo, screaming at Elizabeth. Does This Child Preacher Understand the Words He's Yelling? Elizabeth, who suffers for a long time from depression, revives. . “It still causes a great deal of emotion,” Oprah went on in businesslike fashion. 5 years ago | 115 views. Still, Elizabeth and Hazel seemed in sympathy when they appeared on “Oprah” together in 1999. Reconciliation and redemption are her … Elizabeth Alason Eckford was born circa 1790. Elizabeth wore jeans and a sweat shirt; seeing her now, rounded out, even stocky, it was hard to visualize the slight and fragile girl of forty years earlier. | The Oprah Winfrey Show | OWN … Elizabeth had one sibling: John Eckford Esq.. Elizabeth passed away on December 19 1874, at … An alternate-angle view of Elizabeth Eckford on her first day of school, in a photo taken by an Associated Press photographer. Elizabeth Alason Eckford 1790 1874 Miss Elizabeth Alason Eckford, Circa 1790 - 1874. “Because I am in that moment,” Elizabeth managed to say. Yale University Press, 310 pp., $26. “Elizabeth met Hazel for the first time two years ago in Little Rock, and now...they are friends,” Oprah said incredulously. Eventually she was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Elizabeth tried to find her mother. One of the people there was Ann, who wanted to apologize. In 1957, for a fateful 60th of a second, they were both in front of Central, and linked forever by one of the most familiar, searing, and embarrassing photographs in American history. Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. Every schoolchild knew it, because every American history book had it. Reconciliation and redemption were usually Oprah’s things, but it soon became evident that here was one happy ending that was too much even for Oprah. Shortly before the anniversary celebration began, driving in a borrowed van with Arkansas plates to avoid any undue attention, Counts drove Hazel to Elizabeth's house. “If you can believe that”: Elizabeth knew her relationship with Hazel had its skeptics, especially some blacks, including co-workers and some of the Little Rock Nine. In later years, Hazel made a U-turn, renouncing intolerance and making a sincere attempt to befriend Elizabeth. Yale University Press, 310 pp., $26. ELIZABETH and HAZEL Study Session Part II WE Page 1/4. Superficially at least, Oprah had been on to something that day. It would inspire countless people to try to improve the world, including an Arkansas native named Bill who would one day host both Elizabeth and Hazel at the White House. In an interview, Hazel – who found herself forever linked to a single wrong action – put it this way: “There’s more to me than one moment.” The lesson of “Elizabeth and Hazel” may be that we shouldn’t define other people’s lives by one single moment. Then at other times, mistrust and suspicion would lead to separation. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Plot Summary of “Elizabeth and Hazel” by David Margolick. 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. Nine from Little Rock, 1964 - Restored. Our work isn't possible without your support. Consider the photograph taken on the If Tommy Tiernan rather than Oprah Winfrey was to get the upcoming Meghan and Harry gig, it would make for much better and more insightful television. Leave a reply. As for Elizabeth, who as a child had made her own clothes—including the immaculately pleated white cotton pique-and-gingham skirt she’d wore that first day of school, but was never to wear again—she’d still had her seamstress’s eye: the sleeves on Oprah’s pale gray knit dress, she noticed, were a mite too tight. Joining them there were figures from other iconic images: the mother of the schoolteacher-astronaut killed on the space shuttle Challenger; the man and woman who’d embraced amid the mud of Woodstock; the crying girl, her skin burning from napalm, running naked down a Vietnamese road. From the beginning that day, Elizabeth and Hazel felt marginalized, relegated to seats in the front row rather than on the stage with the other guests. An excerpt from David Margolick’s Elizabeth and Hazel.