Just behind her, also 15 years old, was another young woman whose face is contorted with anger. She was one of 6 children. They heard Maya Angelou read poetry together. She took black teenagers who rarely had left Little Rock on field trips, climbing Pinnacle Mountain and picking strawberries. As Benjamin Fine of The New York Times later described her, she was “screaming, just hysterical, just like one of these Elvis Presley hysterical deals, where these kids are fainting with hysteria”. 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. But, as time passed, Hazel realised that she wasn’t quite ready to let go. They posed for a “reconciliation” poster together. When the rest of the group arrived, they, too, were all turned away from the school. So that morning, Eckford went directly to the school alone. 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. Soon, and most seriously, tensions developed with Elizabeth. Or better yet, be nice, and put them to shame. Now, as Elizabeth continued walking south down Park, more and more of the people lining the street fell in behind her. Click. 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. But she did finally get quiet and we had family prayer. But the two eventually became friends. But their story had only just begun. 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. 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. She recorded some of their sessions, and those taped conversations captured how Elizabeth’s mood had changed. The photo is straightforward, a black teenager surrounded by white people, and a white girl screaming hysterically, filled with rage and hatred towards her. For her part, Hazel felt under assault. 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. 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. Elizabeth Eckford was one of the 9 brave teenagers to attend this desegregated school, and she soon became the face of the desegregation movement. “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. Featured Image her first morning of school, September 4 1957, Elizabeth Eckford’s primary concern was looking nice. Over the next several months, they went to a home and garden show, and bought daylilies and irises together. Despite the tricky lighting, her face is perfectly exposed: the early morning September sun shines on her like a spotlight. But their classmates were tickled to be sitting alongside two such famous antagonists and, week by week, watching them bond. 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. 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. Newly retired from a professorship at Indiana University, the photographer had returned to Arkansas to chronicle the changes at Central since 1957. They wanted to be at the very centre of things. She never married. It was, I thought, a friendly chat. The Arkansas Gazette marvelled at how the events had united in their outrage the newspapers of the Vatican, the Kremlin and a country whose leader had snubbed Jesse Owens only 20 years earlier. Though all of The Nine got letters, Elizabeth got far and away the most, as many as 50 a day. Reconciled after forty years, the two realized they had lots in common, including their children and a fondness for flowers and thrift stores. When Elizabeth cut the ribbon at the dedication of the new visitor centre on September 20, Counts looked on. It’s an iconic image of the American civil rights movement, one that’s been reprinted in newspapers and history books over the last fifty years. David Margolick looks at both Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan and examines both their lives and the milieu both came from. The year 1997 marked the 40th anniversary of the integration of Little Rock Central High School and then-president and Arkansas native, Bill Clinton, wanted a large ceremony to commemorate the event. Will Counts, the photographer responsible for the famous photo, asked Eckford and Bryan if they would be willing to pose again for a second photograph and they both agreed. She returned to the same home she grew up in where she raised two sons alone and largely surviving on disability checks. In some segments of her own community, Elizabeth stood accused of whitewashing reality. They feel like I’m wiping away the past.”. Fifty-eight years ago on September 4, 1957 Elizabeth Eckford attended Little Rock High School in Arkansas. Both received criticism for their relationship. Eckford and Bryan haven’t spoken since 2001, but the photograph of the two of them taken in 1997 is still sold as a poster in the visitor’s center near Central High School, now a National Historic Site. “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. The “reconciliation” poster was popular enough to warrant another printing. Someone had suggested that an entire wall of the new visitor centre be devoted to the photograph. Her instincts were sound. But the reporters on the scene scribbled down what they heard: “Lynch her! Others played their own small parts in the picture, but “the mouth” she later said, “was mine”. Bettmann/Getty ImagesElizabeth Eckford walking to Little Rock Central High School. They talked a lot, she went on, maybe once a week. During the reconciliation rally of 1997, the two women made speeches together. 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. For an instant, she faced the school: it just looked so big! That girl was Hazel Bryan. On her first morning of school, September 4 1957, Elizabeth Eckford’s primary concern was looking nice. The message puzzled Hazel, who had not been consulted about either the reprinting or the disclaimer. One was trying to go to school; the other didn’t want her there. (Will Counts Collection, Indiana University Archives) Hazel was more forthright about where things stood between them, but still oblique. The story and picture led off the Little Rock coverage in Paris Match. Civic activist Elizabeth Eckford was born on October 4, 1941 in Little Rock, Arkansas to Oscar Eckford, Jr. and Birdie Eckford. Eckford was accused of being naïve or too forgiving, while Bryan was accused of being a phony opportunist. They struck up a very unlikely friendship, and began attending events together, and touring around schools to talk to children about race and tolerance. Elizabeth Eckford. Eckford suffered from depression throughout her life and she had various stints in college and then the Army. Quietly, unceremoniously, their great experiment in racial rapprochement was over. The picture had almost immediately become a notorious symbol of white hatred that followed both Eckford and Bryan throughout their lives. Add or Edit Playlist. Their encounters gradually became more frequent, almost routine. Race in US History . The next morning, Elizabeth and Hazel landed on millions of doorsteps. Will Counts Collection/Indiana University Archives. Her mother had done her hair the night before; an … Soon, a small sticker, resembling the surgeon general’s warning on cigarette packs, appeared in the upper right hand corner. 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. 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 Eckford and Hazel Bryan reunited at the 40th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine. 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. Afterward, Jacoway gave him Hazel’s number. Together, Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan starred in one of the most memorable photographs of the Civil Rights era. 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. Quietly, though, some considered the rapprochement, however lovely in principle, a triumph of sentimentality, wishful thinking, and marketing over reality. Then, check out the epic story behind the iconic photo of Elvis shaking hands with President Richard Nixon. What happened fifty-eight years ago between Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan is still going on today with police brutality, protest, and discrimination. She continued down Park. Like most children in the Deep South, Eckford went to a segregated school. Though both Hazel Bryan—now Massery—and Elizabeth Eckford are still alive, it’s unclear if they will find that reconciliation during their lifetimes. Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan. Bryan and Eckford became friends 40 years later when they both attended an anniversary commemoration event. Hazel Bryan stands behind her screaming. Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan: the story behind the photograph that shamed America One was trying to go to school; the other didn’t want her … All this do-gooding with blacks, her husband, Antoine, joked, was really her way of atoning for the picture. One programme focused on self-esteem for teenagers. In the spring of 1999 I travelled to Little Rock and arranged to meet Elizabeth and Hazel at a barbecue. Hazel Bryan and Elizabeth Eckford, Little Rock, Arkansas, September 1957. She’s caught mid-vowel, with her mouth gapingly, ferociously open. Eckford accepted her apology, but the conversation was short and the two did not talk again for years. I especially enjoyed my history and English classes,” Elizabeth reported after that first day. Photographer Will Counts captures 15-year-old Hazel Bryan's reaction to Elizabeth Eckford during the desegregation of Central High in Little Rock, September 4, 1957. “Why should someone endure such treatment just for the color … Maybe she had a block. 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. Image . Dubbed ‘reconciliation’, it was a symbol that America was moving on from its dark past. In 1997, she shared the Father Joseph Biltz Award—presented by the National Conference for Community and Justice—with Hazel Bryan Massery, a then-segregationist student at Central High School who appeared in several of the 1957 photographs screaming at the young Elizabeth. Her mother had done her hair the night before; an elaborate two-hour ritual, with a hot iron and a hotter stove, of straightening and curling. 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. “Turn that thing off!” she shouted. 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. Elizabeth let them go ahead; it was her way of supporting the place. School Photo of Elizabeth Eckford, 1957. Eckford suffered from depression throughout her life and she had various stints in college and then the Army. The two enrolled in a seminar on racial healing offered by Little Rock’s racial and cultural diversity commission. Hazel Bryan stands behind her screaming. 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. However, she dropped out a year later to get married. 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 “like a hermit and a recluse.” “I’ve got to get to the point where I can talk about this. Three young girls, barely into their teens, fell in directly behind Elizabeth. 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