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Elizabeth and Hazel Two Women of Little Rock

 

Trauma, Hate, and Barriers to Reconciliation

 Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock

by David Margolick

Reviewed by  Geoffrey W. Sutton

Elizabeth Ann Eckford is 15 in the classic photo of her silently walking toward Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957. But she’s not alone. A loud white mob screams hate. With an unforgettable open mouth, Hazel Massey appears over Elizabeth’s right shoulder and comes to represent the hot white objection to desegregating the all-white High School.

 

The story of Elizabeth and Hazel is painful to read. David Margolick makes the black and white images come alive as much as possible for those of us at a distance in time and place from the lived events. In addition to the stories recalled by each woman, we gain additional insights from school records and the way various reporters retold the stories over several decades.

 

Margolick offers insight into human emotion and personality traits as well as the toll on mental health of traumatic experience Thus we can trace the effects of racism that bears down on Elizabeth's wellbeing for decades. We also see the contrast with Hazel's struggle to recover from the persistent image of hate and establish a credible change from representing white hostility to a woman who seeks a path to reconciliation in a context where few Blacks and Whites are willing to affirm her new attitude.

 

The author's nuanced telling of the effects of apologies and attempts at forgiveness and reconciliation are worth pondering as we see the real world problems of bridging  the Black-White chasm widened by verbal and physical violence inflamed by government orders to desegregate the schools.


 Elizabeth and Hazel


What's missing in the story is an appreciation of the problems with human memory when it comes to recalling personal experiences. I would not expect the author to be a neuropsychologist, but there were useful resources and experts available at the time he was writing to help with this important component of recounting what really happened in Little Rock in 1957 and what happened at various points in the decades covered by the book.

Biographers rely on interviews, news stories, and notes. Margolick artfully weaves these disparate sources into a meaningful narrative that keeps us wanting to turn the pages to learn what happens next. That’s good writing. But I’d like to see him wrestle a bit more with the evidence. How does he decide to weigh this memory or that recollection? How do biases affect the memories of the victims and the perpetrators? Are there false memories too—things that never happened?

 

Despite my desire for a deeper analysis, I recommend this book for readers who want to better understand the struggles of African-Americans during the early years of desegregation and those who want to think about interracial apologies, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Cite this review

Sutton, G.W. (2022). Trauma, hate, and barriers to reconciliation: A review of Elizabeth and Hazel-two women of Little Rock. Sutton Reviews. Retrieved from https://suttonreviews.suttong.com/2022/01/elizabeth-and-hazel-two-women-of-little.html 


Reference

Margolick, D. (2011). Elizabeth and Hazel: Two women of Little Rock. New Haven: Yale. 

Available on AMAZON

Book Author

David Margolick is an author of several books. He has been a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.

Reviewer

Geoffrey W. Sutton is a psychologist and author who studies and writes about psychology and culture. Read more at suttong.com

 Resources

Videos of Elizabeth Eckford and the Little Rock Nine

Photos of Elizabeth, Hazel, and the LIttle Rock Nine

 

 Books about the Little Rock Nine






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