Day Four's BlogFest Theme: Race and Gender
Among the vast areas for discussion on race and gender, I felt it would be poignant to review a book delving into race issues called "Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock." I just completed the book this morning and have been planning on writing a review in the near future - and this blog post is a perfect fit.
Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women Of Little Rock
Margolick, David
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, October 2011
320 pp. $26.00
978-0-300-14193-1
In October 2011, I was watching an interview with author David Margolick on MSNBC's Morning Joe (a favorite morning show of mine) who was discussing his new book about two women who were captured in a photograph during the first attempt of desegregation at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. The description of the book seemed fascinating to me, so I eventually ordered a copy.
That photograph, which has been a national point of reference of the late 1950's, is a memorable one. The Little Rock Nine, as they were later called, was a group of nine black students who were integrating into an all-white school. The integration process got off to a rocky start. In particular, one of the Little Rock Nine, a girl wearing a white dress and sunglasses, walked alone to the school. When the Arkansas National Guard barred her from entering the school (essentially a conflict between federal and state governments), this girl - Elizabeth Eckford - was unsure what to do. As some of the white individuals followed and harassed her, one particular teenager - Hazel Bryan - began yelling at Elizabeth, telling her that as a "nigger" she needed to go back home. The book goes into exceptional, gripping detail about those moments.
It was a disgraceful time in the United States. And yet since then, aside from different memoirs written by some of the Little Rock Nine and a couple "documentaries" that skewed much of what really happened, there hasn't been any publicly released resources that tell the tale in full from that fateful day in 1957 to the present time. David Margolick's book does that.
I found his book to be a fascinating read into the lives of Elizabeth and Hazel. It answers a lot of questions, such as, how could Hazel live with herself after screaming such horrible, public statements at a lone, non-threatening black girl? And why did Hazel choose to do such a thing? In depth, one learns about Hazel's poor upbringing and how the socioeconomic status of her family played a role in Hazel's ultimate actions. We also get a sense of what Elizabeth was really thinking throughout her solitary walk among an openly hostile crowd that could have easily turned violent (but thankfully didn't) against her. Additionally, there are answers to the questions about what it was like for Elizabeth to be a black student in an otherwise all-white school for a year (it involved a lot of terrible physical and emotional harasment from students).
Eventually, though not within the first weeks after the incident, Hazel did begin to acknowledge that what she did was wrong. And her life took a turn because of that acknowledgement, where she began to harness her self-blame and do good by mentoring young black teenagers. She ultimately apologized to Elizabeth, and the two ended up becoming close.
Of course, the story isn't that simple. Elizabeth and Hazel had a very difficult journey together, privately and on the public stage. Friendship between these two women caught in such a well-publicized moment in time didn't come easily, nor did it end happily. The book is a statement of how complicated race relations can be. Differences between the Little Rock Nine are pointed out as well; they were certainly not a united front. Despite it being more than fifty years since the Little Rock Nine incident, time has not erased the racial divides. Certainly they have narrowed, but bias, prejudice, and yes - even hate - still exist from all sides of the racial spectrum. One can listen to the recent news about the tragic Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida to see that it still exists.
The book provides some historical snapshots of multiple "characters" surrounding the tensions, including the Central High School principal, the student body president, teachers, the Arkansas governor, NAACP leaders, the other Little Rock Nine students, and family members of Elizabeth and Hazel. It's a fuller picture of the situation that you're unlikely to have known about otherwise. And it's a profile of the lives and families of Elizabeth and Hazel - and there are some unexpected tragedies that occurred decades after 1957. It made me feel sad for so many of the people involved.
The book did have some flaws, in my opinion, though not in regard to the content itself. The book could have used a much better editing process, due to heavily poor punctuation use throughout. This surprised me considering the author is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine. From the beginning of the prologue, I found the improper punctuation use extremely distracting. I wanted to put the book down, though I'm glad I didn't. I imagine I'm among a small percentage of people who would care about or perhaps even notice those errors. Ultimately what's important are Elizabeth and Hazel's stories.
School textbooks don't do justice to this particular history. If you have any interest in knowing more about the Little Rock Nine, I highly recommend this book.
You can follow Mike Goodhart on Twitter at @mtgoodha.
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