As we look back on this month’s Education theme, and reflect on the challenges and joys that face us every day in our learning, we should remember that American education was quite different not so very long ago.The desegregation of schools that began with the landmark US Supreme Court Case, Brown v. Board of Education, transformed the structure of American society. Whites would attend schools with blacks, and each would stand to gain immense exposure to the intimacies of worlds previously unknown to them. This is, perhaps, learning in its most productive sense: first-hand experience in an attempt to achieve a fuller understanding of our own existence.

But the process was not easy—in many ways it is not over, as David Margolick observes in his new biography, Elizabeth & Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock. While the Little Rock Nine are known to us as the nine African-American students who broke the color barrier in schools by being the first of their race to attend Little Rock Central High School, this story of September 1957 began with—and was fueled by—a famous photograph of one black student, Elizabeth Eckford, and Hazel Bryan, a white student loudly speaking out against desegregation as Elizabeth attempted to enter the school.

In this gripping book, David Margolick tells the remarkable story of two separate lives unexpectedly braided together. He explores how the haunting picture of Elizabeth and Hazel came to be taken, its significance in the wider world, and why, for the next half-century, neither woman has ever escaped from its long shadow. He recounts Elizabeth’s struggle to overcome the trauma of her hate-filled school experience, and Hazel’s long efforts to atone for a fateful, horrible mistake. Margolick’s schedule of events begins October 4 with the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, AK, before continuing to New York, Connecticut, DC, and Nashville later in the month. And we’ll have more updates on the October 4 official publication date, which also happens to be Elizabeth Eckford’s birthday.

But for now, we’d like to present the book trailer for this beautifully written story, seen here in interview-style with David Margolick retelling the events of September 1957 and his own part in the lives of these two extraordinary women.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X46XuWzpFgA]