Elizabeth Eckford, Of The Little Rock Nine, Tells Her Life Story

Vanity Fair:

It was a school night, and Elizabeth Eckford was too excited to sleep. The next morning, September 4, 1957, was her first day of classes, and one last time she ironed the pleated white skirt she'd made for the occasion. It was made of piqué cotton; when she'd run out of material, she'd trimmed it with navy-blue-and-white gingham. Then she put aside her new bobby socks and white buck loafers. Around 7:30 a.m. the following day, she boarded a bus bound for Little Rock Central High School.

Other black schoolchildren were due at Central that historic day, but Elizabeth would be the first to arrive. The world would soon know all about the Little Rock Nine. But when Elizabeth Eckford tried to enter Central, and thereby become the first black student to integrate a major southern high school, she was really the Little Rock One. The painfully shy 15-year-old daughter of a hyper-protective mother reluctant to challenge age-old racial mores, she was the unlikeliest trailblazer of all. But as dramatic as the moment was, it really mattered only because Elizabeth wandered into the path of Will Counts's camera.

Read the whole story: Vanity Fair

Comments

[Rand]

The courage of those nine schoolchildren, and others who faced the same blind and ignorant hatred should never be forgotten

[whizkid]

CapEd
All our city schools are black today dillweed.
So?
You moved out.
Whatever.
Justice took too much time.
Bush's gets rich.

[kittycago]

If anyone is interested Elizabeth and the other 8 students are on C-Span 2 speaking right now.

[wijg]

Thanks kittycargo, watching right now.

[wijg]

That photo both breaks my heart and disgusts me.

[kittycago]

That photo both breaks my heart and disgusts me.
----------­----------­----------­----------­------
me too that is why I researched it.I remember being shocked at this.I was a kid in a small town in Ct and we had very little race relation disconnects.I would not say there were no bigots but at that time one of my mother's best freinds was a black school teacher who lived a few blocks from us.This was like looking at a foreign nation to me.I saw the picture and thought about my own childhood and researched the subjects.That is how I found that delightful artical about the 2 young women in the picture and how they ultimately became friends.We have a long way to go but they could be role models for where we should end up.

[grainger5]

More things that do not belong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUcOaGawIW0

[kittycago]

Once in a while we see a happy ending to a story .The student screaming at Elizabeth Eckart is Hazel Massery.I was curious to see if I could find out first who was that girls who's face is frozen in hatred ?I found out who she was and delve a little further and found this.

http://www.ardemgaz.com/prev/central/baxhazel17.html

[Captain EdwardGraham]

Someone needs to tell the 'rest of the story'.

Central High School in Little Rock is now totally Black and has been for many years now. In 1957 it was a lower middle class white neighborhood, now it is a Black slum and decent Black people wont live there.

It is not safe to walk there at night because of all the druggies. There is this big, once beautiful Central High School and a gas station across the street which the government converted to a museum and visitor center. The rest of the buildings, once single family, are run down, abandoned, and trashed converted apartment tenements.

This social experiment did not work out. All the whites simply moved out to the suburbs.

[nihilon x]

"This social experiment did not work out. All the whites simply moved out to the suburbs."

As have many blacks.

If you're going to tell "the rest of the story", tell it in full.