Anders Walker— The recent opening of a lynching memorial in Montgomery, Alabama underscores the role that violence played in upholding racial segregation, or Jim Crow. From the 1870s through the 1950s, even the slightest challenge to white supremacy could spark a violent, terrifying backlash. And yet, the actual incidence of
Read an excerpt from Elizabeth and Hazel There are no simple stories, if they’re true. Fifty five years ago, a young black student named Elizabeth Eckford moved toward Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas to attend class for the first time. She was part of what would be known as
Sarah Underwood— “Integration was one of the worst things to happen to black kids. We lost our community,” said a former student whose segregated Floridian high school closed in 1969. It’s nearly impossible to read that without feeling troubled. Weren’t black communities oppressed during Jim Crow? How could anyone feel
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but if David Margolick’s new book Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock is any indication, a thousand is a low estimate. While the book itself only runs 320 pages, since its September release date, many pages more have been
Today, we officially publish David Margolick’s new biography, Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock, looking at one of the most unforgettable photographs of the civil rights era and recounting the impact on the lives of Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery. We’ve shown you the book trailer, and
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,
The names Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery may not be well known, but the image of them from September 1957 surely is: a black high school girl, dressed in white, walking stoically in front of Little Rock Central High School, and a white girl standing directly behind her, face
In September 1955, shortly after Emmett Till was murdered by white supremacists in Money, Mississippi, his grieving mother, Mamie Till Bradley, distributed to newspapers and magazines a gruesome black-and-white photograph of his mutilated corpse. Asked why she would do this, Mrs. Bradley explained that by witnessing, with their own eyes,