Hazel Massery

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Elizabeth Eckford is depicted in this photograph taken by Will Counts in 1957. It is one of the top 100 photographs of the 20th century, according to the Associated Press. Hazel Massery is the white girl seen yelling at Eckford as Eckford attempted to enter the school on her first day.

Hazel Massery, (born Hazel Bryan), was a student at Little Rock Central High School during the 1950s. She became famous in 1957 as the result of an iconic photograph showing her shouting at Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, during the integration crisis. In her later life, she would work with Eckford to further the goals of racial harmony. She appeared with Eckford and the rest of the Little Rock Nine on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and at the 40th Anniversary Celebration of integration at Central High. The reunion provided an opportunity for acts of reconciliation, as noted in this editorial from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on the first day of 1998:

One of the fascinating stories to come out of the reunion was the apology that Hazel Bryan Massery made to Elizabeth Eckford for a terrible moment caught forever by the camera. That 40-year-old picture of hate assailing grace — which had gnawed at Ms. Massery for decades — can now be wiped clean, and replaced by a snapshot of two friends. The apology came from the real Hazel Bryan Massery, the decent woman who had been hidden all those years by a fleeting image. And the graceful acceptance of that apology was but another act of dignity in the life of Elizabeth Eckford.^[1]