Little Rock

Elizabeth and
Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock
by David Margolick

If this book were a novel, I wouldn’t’ve believed the plausibility
of the story. But instead, it’s true, so you really have to accept the twists and turns. And this book has plenty of
that stuff going on.

Many of us recognize the famous photo. It’s one of those things
you wish weren’t real, but it is, and it’s important that we face it. Here it
is:

So this book is the story of Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little
Rock Nine who integrated Central High School, and Hazel Bryan Massery, the girl
jeering Elizabeth
in the photo.

It’s clear from the start that somehow they meet again later in
life, and it seems like there was some sort of reconciliation.

And when I got to that part of the book—as older adults, they were
chatty friends who attended flower shows together!—it really seemed too good to
be true.

And, of course, it was.

The friendship lasted several months, and then things got
uncomfortable and tense, and they stopped speaking.  

Much about this book was sad and sobering.

I really thought Elizabeth Eckford would turn out to have a great
life—becoming a professor or something like that. She was bookish as a girl. But
it turns out her life served up a whole bunch of bad stuff to her, and that
takes its toll, and her life was rather rocky.

And then there’s Hazel. She apologized to Elizabeth
later in life, but that didn’t actually make things better in the end, and it’s
unclear whether she ever completely understood how she had hurt Elizabeth all those years
ago.

More complex and nuanced than it appears at first glance. 

On the Vanity Fair website, you can read Margolick’s fine article about the two women.