Little Rock

By Aziz P. -



Today is the 50th anniversary of Little Rock. Above is the famous photo by Will Counts (above), the caption to which reads:

Elizabeth Eckford, followed and taunted by an angry crowd after she was denied entrance to Little Rock Central High School, September 4, 1957. The girl in the light dress behind her is Hazel Bryan. Will Counts/Arkansas History Commission.


Vanity Fair has an indepth article on the lives of those two women, which makes for a fascinating tale of racism and redemption in its own right. And yet, the story doesn't quite have a happy ending:

Central High School looks as imposing as ever, but over the past 50 years, its innards have changed unimaginably: the school is now more than half black. It's all misleading, of course, because Central is really two different schools, separate and unequal, under one roof. The blacks go to different classes, sit on separate sides of the cafeteria, have different, and far lower, levels of performance and expectations.


There's a long way to go before the Cosby Show/Different World reality becomes mainstream.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gay Saudi Arabia

By Dignan -
I found this very interesting new item about a suspected gay wedding in Saudi Arabia. While there are some who think that the United States is obsessed with sex and is stridently homophobic, nothing can compare with Muslim attitudes towards homosexuals. Publicly claiming to be homosexual in a Muslim country usually equals death. So why is it that rarely does one hear the homosexual community here in America speaking out against Muslim countries? Am I missing something here?
Read more

Five Things Dean Supporters Can Do Right Now to Fight Terrorism

By Anonymous -
Or: how I stopped worrying and learned to support the spread of democracy in the Middle East. Hello, Dean Nation! The incomparable Aziz P. has kindly invited me to post here in addition to my usual perches at Liberals Against Terrorism and Chez Nadezhda . For that, I thank him, and I hope that I do him credit. Like perhaps most readers of this site, I'm not a fan of the Bush Administration. Last year I devoted a goodly portion of my life to ousting it, including a trip to freezing cold Cedar Rapids and Waterloo, Iowa, where I canvassed for the Dean Campaign in the runup to the caucuses. I admit that I lost faith in the Dean movement after that, and I floundered around a bit in trying to figure out who to support, eventually setting upon Johnny Sunshine Edwards (or was it Clark?). I have never been a big fan of John Kerry, to say the least. It's tempting to fall into cynical sniping, which I myself have done at times. But I find it dispiriting and ultimately corro
Read more