Little Rock Central High School desegregation duo subject of new book

Little Rock Central High School desegregation duo subject of new book

After more than fifty years, many say the famous 1957 photograph of two young girls -- one white and one black -- at "Little Rock Central High School":http://www.lrcentralhigh.org/ continues to not only reflect racism in America at that time, but it also highlights racial issues still present within society today. The image (seen above) that depicted such a terrible situation between these two girls was the foundation of the book called "Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock":http://www.amazon.com/Elizabeth-Hazel-Women-Little-Rock/dp/0300141939, written by veteran journalist "David Margolick":http://www.observer.com/2009/media/david-margolick-joins-newsweek. "I think that I've just always been interested in minority groups and the struggle for fairness," Margolick told theGrio. "I think it grows out of my own background of Jewish. There is something very inspiring about people fighting for their rights even as discouraging as the situations can be sometimes." "Elizabeth Eckford":http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=721 -- who is black-- and "Hazel Bryan Massery":http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-08-29-Littlerock_N.htm -- who is white -- are the two 16-year-old girls captured in the September 1957 photo taken in front of the Little Rock Central High School. The timeless photograph shows Eckford, dressed in white, walking stoically in front of the high school as Massery stands directly behind her screaming racial slurs. It was this photograph that stayed within the mind of Margolick from a very early age: "I never thought about writing a book about it, but it was always apart of conscious from a very young age -- who can say when," he told theGrio. "Everybody knows this picture and everybody recognizes it." In 1999, Margolick said he came across the photograph at the "Little Rock Central High School Museum":http://www.nps.gov/chsc/index.htm after going to Arkansas to cover a story. "As soon as you walk into the museum, you see the picture," he said. "This is not surprising since the picture encapsulates American racism. It's all there in that picture. " To him, Margolick affirmed that Massery's face displayed the story of white intolerance and hatred, while Eckford's face displayed a story of black dignity, courage, and fear. As Margolick completed his tour at the museum, he became surprised by a poster showcased in the museum gift shop that showed the two together as adults. The image prompted him to investigate how the unforgettable picture of Eckford and Massery came to be taken, and its impact on the women's lives and the world. "It was a picture of them together much older and sort of joking with one another," he told theGrio. "I was amazed to see it. You don't think of them as growing up and evolving. You also certainly don't think of them as making up. I felt that from the first picture to second picture there was a story there. I wanted to know how they got from one story to another." Margolick told theGrio he was determined to find out the story behind their unlikely friendship. He then started researching and quickly found out that they both were not only still around town, but they had become friends in 1997. He then quickly arranged a meeting with them. "Soon I saw myself in the presence of these two iconic faces as we had barbecue in a diner, and it was bizarre," he told theGrio. Margolick said he initially wanted to meet and interview them for an article he was writing on their friendship. He thought it would be interesting to share with society. However, after meeting with them, he decided to write a book instead. He realized that an article would not sufficiently capture their relationship, which appeared to shockingly be deteriorating before his eyes. "Since they had made up two years later, by the time I got around to meeting them, they were already sort of getting on one another's nerves for a variety of reasons," he told theGrio. "It mostly focused on the fact that Elizabeth thought that Hazel was not being full candid about who she was, why she was there that day in 1957, and who her family was." Apparently, the tension built up so much that Margolick said shortly after the meeting they stopped talking to one another. To this day, Eckford and Massery still haven't spoken in ten years.