Elizabeth Eckford (born October 4, 1941) was one of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who, in 1957, were the first black students ever to attend classes at Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The integration came as a result of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
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Elizabeth Eckford was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. Oscar and Birdie Eckford were her parents. She was one of six children. Her father worked nights as a dining car maintenance worker for the Missouri Pacific Railroad’s Little Rock station. Her mother taught at a segregated state school for blind and deaf children, instructing them how to wash and iron clothes.
Elizabeth Eckford first attended Horace Mann High School in Little Rock.
On September 4, 1957, Eckford and eight other African American students (known as the Little Rock Nine) made a successful attempt to enter Little Rock Central High School, which had been segregated. With the complicity of the National Guard, an angry mob of about 400 surrounded the school.
As fifteen-year-old Eckford tried to enter the school, soldiers of the National Guard, under orders from Arkansas Governor Faubus, would step in her way to prevent her from entering. Eventually, she tried to approach a bus stop through the mob of segregationists who surrounded her and threatened to lynch her. Once Eckford got to the bus stop, she couldn't stop crying. A reporter, Benjamin Fine, having in mind his own 15-year-old daughter and sat down next to Eckford. He tried to comfort her and told her, "don't let them see you cry."[1] Soon, she was also protected by a white woman named Grace Lorch who escorted her home.[2][3]
The plan was to have the nine children arrive together, but when the meeting place was changed the night before, the Eckford family's lack of a telephone left Elizabeth uninformed of the change.[4] Instructions were given by Daisy Bates, a strong activist for desegregation, for the nine students to wait for her so that they could all walk together to the rear entrance of the school.[5][6][7] This last minute change caused Elizabeth to be the first to take a different route to school, walking up to the front entrance completely alone. Even though Elizabeth Eckford would one day be known as a member of the Little Rock Nine, at this point in the school day, she was all alone, making her the first colored student to integrate a white southern high school.[8]
The National Guard were removed, and the protection of the students left to the local police. On September 23, 1957, a mob of about 1000 people surrounded the school as the students attempted to enter. The following day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent U.S. Army troops to accompany the students to school for protection. The troops were stationed at the school for the entire school year, although they were unable to prevent incidents of violence, such as when Eckford was thrown down a flight of stairs.[2]
All of the city’s high schools were closed the following year, so Eckford did not graduate from Central High School. However, she had taken correspondence and night courses garnering enough credits for her high school diploma.[4] In 1958, Eckford and the rest of the Little Rock Nine were awarded the Spingarn Medal by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as was Ms. Bates.
Eckford was accepted by Knox College in Illinois, but she left, returning to be near her family in Little Rock. She would later attend Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, where she earned a BA in history.
Eckford served in the United States Army for five years, first as a pay clerk, and then as an information specialist. She also wrote for the Fort McClellan (Alabama) and the Fort Benjamin Harrison (Indiana) newspapers. After that, she has worked as a waitress, history teacher, welfare worker, unemployment and employment interviewer, and a military reporter. She is a probation officer in Little Rock.
In 1997, Eckford shared the Father Joseph Biltz Award (presented by the National Conference for Community and Justice) with Hazel Bryan Massery, a segregationist classmate who appears in the Will Counts photograph screaming at Eckford. During the reconciliation rally of 1997, the two women made speeches together. [9] In 1999, President Bill Clinton presented the nation’s highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal, to the members of the Little Rock Nine.
On the morning of January 1, 2003, one of Eckford’s two sons, Erin Eckford, age 26, was shot and killed by police in Little Rock.[10] The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that the police officers had unsuccessfully tried to disarm him with a beanbag round after he had fired several shots from his military style rifle. When Mr. Eckford pointed his rifle towards them, the police officers shot him. His mother feared that his death was “suicide by police”. Erin, she said, had suffered from mental illness but had been off his prescribed medication for several years. On June 18, 2003, the newspaper reported that prosecutors investigating the fatal shooting had decided that the police officers concerned were justified in shooting Mr. Eckford.
