Choice of Weapons Award recipient tells her story

Elizabeth Eckford remembers the historic events that took place 50 years ago like they happened just yesterday.

Eckford was one of the members of the Little Rock Nine who integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957. On Sept. 4 of that year, nine African-American students attempted to enter the racially-segregated school. Their efforts were blocked by several U.S. National Guard troops called up by then-Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus.

The students tried again without success to enter the high school on Sept. 23, 1957. The next day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent U.S. Army troops to accompany the Little Rock Nine to school for protection. It was reported that many black students then thought the situation would quiet down. They were wrong.

The events of that day would go on to impact Eckford's life forever.

"I was very shy as a child," she said during a Thursday telephone interview with The Fort Scott Tribune. "I went from that to someone who finally found her own voice."

Eckford was the subject of a powerful photograph taken by Will Counts on that memorable day that depicts Eckford clutching her books as she made her way through the angry mob to sit on a bus bench at the end of the block. Eckford later went to her mother's workplace.

In Counts' photograph, a young white woman and segregationist classmate named Hazel Massey is seen behind Eckford, shouting angrily at her as she walked with her books in her arms. That photo is featured on a poster titled "Reconciliation" offered at the Central High School National Historic Site that depicts the same two women today, arm in arm while smiling happily. Central High School still operates today as an active institution.

Eckford said she has not spoken to Massey since 2001, when Counts died, but the two have long since moved past their racial differences. The two former adversaries even made speeches together during a reconciliation rally after receiving the Father Joseph Biltz Award in 1997.

"True reconciliation can only happen when we acknowledge a painful but shared past," Eckford said. "You can move on once you acknowledge it."

Eckford said she mustered the courage to do what she did that day in 1957 because her parents had raised her to do whatever it took to get an education. Her parents told her that in order to improve a person's life prospects, that person needed to go to college.

"I had always been told that I needed to go to college, and I wanted to be prepared for that," she said.

Concerning the racial hatred shown to her and other black students when they tried to enter the school, Eckford said she was concerned but not afraid.

"I wasn't scared because I didn't think it would be a violent outcome," she said.

On Sept. 24, 1957, after the 101st Airborne Division transferred its duties to federalized National Guard troops, many of whom were locals opposed to integration, about 100 white students began harassing and assaulting the black students, by cursing, jostling, and spitting on them.

The Little Rock Nine were removed from the school on that first day to prevent a riot. On Sept. 25, 1957, they entered the school with an armed escort from the 101st and, later, the federalized Arkansas National Guard after orders from Eisenhower on Sept. 24, taking matters out of the hands of Faubus.

When the students were finally able to enter the school to attend class, they were followed closely by soldiers who always stayed within 11 steps behind them at all times throughout the school day, Eckford said. The soldiers also separated the students from their attackers, she said.

Because all high schools in Little Rock were closed in 1958, Eckford did not graduate from Central High School, but did earn enough credits through night courses and correspondence. She later attended Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, and earned a bachelors degree in history. She has held a variety of jobs throughout her life and now works as a probation officer in Little Rock.

The old saying that "time heals all wounds" just might be appropriate as now, 50 years later, Eckford can look back on 1957 and speak about the events comfortably.

"In Little Rock, it's taken quite a long time to acknowledge the past," she said.

Eckford said she still uses the knowledge gained from her experiences to educate people, particularly students, to this day. She has also spoken about the Civil Rights Movement to various groups.

She still keeps in touch with other members of the Little Rock Nine, who Eckford said will all get together again to be inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame on Oct. 27 in Little Rock.

The group also recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the events of September 1957 at Central High School. The Little Rock Nine were also honored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1958. In 1999, the group received the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian award.

Eckford and fellow Little Rock Nine member Ernest Green, an investment banker in Washington, D.C., will be in Fort Scott on Friday to receive the Gordon Parks Choice of Weapons Award during a tribute dinner to Parks at 7:30 p.m. at the Liberty Theater, 113 S. Main St.

Eckford said she never got the chance to know Parks, but that she is aware of the lasting legacy Parks left behind through his work as a Renaissance man.

"I'm very honored and very much humbled by it," Eckford said. "I knew about him as an artistic photographer. I never knew him personally but I knew about him."

The dinner is part of the 4th Annual Gordon Parks Celebration of Culture and Diversity that continues through Saturday.