You probably know the photograph that defined the Little Rock Crisis. Elizabeth Eckford, whose family did not have a phone, didn’t receive the message to meet up with the other eight of the Little Rock Nine, so she took the bus to Central High School on the first day of integration — alone. Rather than receiving a warm welcome, hecklers followed her on her walk from the bus stop to the school. One Hazel Bryan, egged on by the crowd, was immortalized on film, and in newspapers around the world, as she was suggesting other places that she thought Elizabeth should go that day, like Africa. (The shutter caught her mouth in mid-word, contorted, making her face look particularly sinister.) Fast forward to the future, when Heckler’s Remorse hits Hazel, and she seeks to reconcile with Elizabeth.

She does, by telephone initially. A face-to-face meeting wouldn’t happen for several years later. And the point of this book is to say that reconciliation doesn’t always come easy, and it certainly doesn’t with these two. I found it difficult not to get impatient with both women at different points as I read this.

This is an interesting book for anyone who enjoys 20th-century history as much as I do. The events of the Little Rock Crisis narrate much of the book, and questions such as, “Why Little Rock?” are answered. (Little Rock was considered to be a fairly liberal city for the South, and the governor was actually a moderate before he decided to become pro-segregation.)

The book, though scholarly, is an easy read, and several reviews appeared when it came out. I am linking to a review from The New York Times.

Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock, by David Margolick. Yale University Press, 2011.