Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock by David Margolick
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Last weekend, I traveled to Little Rock, Arkansas for the first time. One highlight was visiting the place where, in 1957, a group of brave Black teenagers attempted to walk through the doors of the all-white Central High School, surrounded by mobs of enraged segregationists. These students, known as the Little Rock Nine, became enduring symbols of the civil rights movement.
Little Rock Central High School, now a national historic site run by the National Park Service, remains a functioning school and is closed to the general public, although you can walk on the grounds and climb up the famous steps. Across the street, there is an excellent visitor center, where I bought a copy of Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock by journalist David Margolick.
Published in 2011, the book chronicles the lives of two 15-year-old girls – one Black, one white – who were captured in one of the most famous photographs of the era. The book also explores how this unforgettable image has haunted both women for decades.
I was familiar with the photograph, but not the story behind it. It shows Elizabeth Eckford, dressed in a crisp white blouse and pleated skirt, surrounded by jeering protesters as she calmly tries to approach the school on her first day of classes. Behind her is another girl, Hazel Bryan, her face contorted in an ugly sneer as she shouts racist insults while Elizabeth looks straight ahead. The photographer was 26-year-old Will Counts of the Arkansas Democrat; it was his first big assignment.
After buying Margolick's book, I immediately set aside the novel I had been reading. I read about half of this book on the flight home and finished it by the next morning. The story is riveting and takes turns I did not anticipate. The biggest surprise is that years after the photograph was taken, Elizabeth and Hazel gradually became friends, although the relationship later crumbled as each woman began to suspect the other’s motives and sincerity.
This book is an extraordinary work of journalism. Margolick interviewed Elizabeth and Hazel over the course of several years and tells their stories with empathy and sensitivity. Elizabeth’s journey is heartbreaking. Gaining entry to Central High School with the help of armed guards deployed by President Eisenhower was only the beginning of her trauma. Throughout her time at the school, she was spat on and pushed down the stairs by other students. They tripped her, threw rotten eggs and tomatoes at her and tried to scald her in the shower during gym class. She felt alone, alienated and abandoned.
Fiercely intelligent, Elizabeth had agreed to transfer to Central High School, which had facilities and class offerings that far surpassed those at her all-Black school, in hopes of becoming a lawyer. But the abuse she suffered there stayed with her for years. She did not acclimate well to college and at one point tried to take her own life. Her struggles continued into adulthood and affected her children as well. Only years later was she diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Hazel is harder to empathize with, although Margolick shows how she matured, changed and repented over time. Brought up in a deeply segregated culture, she owned up to her prejudice in ways that many others of that era did not. Her atonement began in the early 1960s with a phone call to Elizabeth to apologize, to acknowledge what she had done and to say she didn’t want her children to turn out the same way.
Photography is an incredibly powerful medium, yet it can also distort reality. In the split second captured in the photograph, it was the screaming Hazel – not any other protester – who happened to come into clear view. When the shutter clicked, the girl standing next to Hazel, who became one of the most ardent segregationists at Central High School, at that very instant turned her back to the camera, allowing her to largely escape the glare of history.
Hazel transferred to a new school days after the photo appeared and had no contact with any of the Little Rock Nine until she called Elizabeth to apologize years later. Margolick writes that had Hazel remained at Central she likely would have joined in carrying out the abuse, but the fact remains that she did not.
The story of Elizabeth and Hazel’s friendship years later speaks to the capacity for forgiveness, yet it's also hard to fully comprehend. The two women did joint speaking appearances on racial reconciliation and seemed to forge a genuine bond, going out for barbecue, shopping for fabrics and plants, and sharing intimate details of their lives. But the relationship did not last, for many complex reasons explored in the book.
I felt profound sadness as I read the book, both in the depictions of the Jim Crow South and in the suffering that Elizabeth endured. She has earned an important place in history, but it took a huge toll on her. Not only was she subjected to horrible abuse, but she was also let down by the adults who were supposed to protect her. She carries particular resentment toward local civil rights leaders, who she viewed as enlisting her as a foot soldier in a battle she was completely unprepared for.
While in Little Rock, I also stopped by "Testament," a civil rights memorial outside the Arkansas State Capitol depicting the Little Rock Nine, and visited the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, which features an exhibit honoring them and their legacy. Reading this book was a fitting way to wrap up my time in Little Rock, a city that seems to have come a long way in reckoning with its troubled history.
