How Elizabeth Was Portrayed In High School

Elizabeth was one of the nine first African American students who were to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. Elizabeth was abused throughout her high school years for being black; she faced daily verbal and physical assault which led to depression and anxiety in her adult years. Meanwhile, Hazel, who also attended Central High School, was a racist white girl who shouted out racial slurs to the black students around her. Although Elizabeth and Hazel are very different from each other, one might identify with Elizabeth and Hazel about getting bullied, making mistakes, and social pressure.

Anyone who’s ever been bullied can relate to Elizabeth in many ways. Elizabeth faced racial remarks since the first day of her high school year. People shouted racial slurs such as “Go home, nigger”! and “Go back to Africa” (37). She tried to stay put throughout her days at central however, it would get worse as the days passed by. She would get

Elizabeth Eckford’s mistake might have been not using her public figure status as a way to cope and educate people who were also facing the same complications. Unlike the other eight black members of the school, she let her experience in high school lead her to post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. She placed her sons in foster care twice, she had been taking medication and going to therapy to keep her from killing herself, and she became very poor(182-185). Hazel’s mistake was being racist and shouting “Go back to Africa!” in front of the press to grab attention because that capture of the moment became one of the most influential pictures of the civil rights movements. The picture of her yelling racial slurs leads to Hazel changing schools and receiving death threats from people who supported the civil rights movement. The mistakes both women have done led to a type of social pressure that was hard to come out