“They [mob] moved closer and closer…Somebody started yelling…I tried to see a friendly face somewhere in the crowd - someone who maybe could help. I looked into the face of an old woman and it seemed a kind face, but when I looked at her again, she spat on me.” Elizabeth Eckford (b. 1941) was part of the “Little Rock Nine”, a group of black students chosen to attend Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas in 1957. Three years earlier, the Supreme Court had ruled segregation in public schools as unconstitutional with the case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The controversial ruling was met with immense opposition from the white population of Little Rock and its neighboring towns, which led to daily riots protesting Eckford’s attendance at the school. An Associated Press photographer captured an iconic image of Eckford on her first day of school walking alone with her books through a large crowd of protestors, seemingly unfazed by the threats of the mob. The Arkansas National Guardsmen stopped her at the door and she was chased away by the mob. President Eisenhower intervened later that month and the nine students were finally escorted into the school by members of the 101st Airborne. Today, Eckford is a symbol for the Civil Rights Movement and the inequalities that continue to plague the United States.
Elizabeth Eckford, 2018 Oil on linen 12 x 9 inches