Born: 4 October 1941, United States
Died: NA
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
This biography is shared with kind permission from the Central Arkansas Library System’s Encyclopedia of Arkansas, and was written by the National Park Service. All rights reserved. This entry was added in 2026; please check the Encyclopedia of Arkansas page for the most up-to-date version.
Elizabeth Ann Eckford made history as a member of the Little Rock Nine, the nine African American students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The image of fifteen-year-old Eckford, walking alone through a screaming mob in front of Central High School, propelled the crisis into the nation’s living rooms and brought international attention to Little Rock (Pulaski County).
Elizabeth Eckford was born on October 4, 1941, to Oscar and Birdie Eckford, and is 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 the segregated state school for blind and deaf children, instructing them in how to wash and iron for themselves.
On September 4, 1957, Eckford arrived at Central High School alone. The Little Rock Nine were supposed to go together, but their meeting place was changed the previous night. The Eckford family had no phone, and so Daisy Bates intended to go to their place early the next day but never made it. As a result, Eckford was alone when she got off the bus a block from the school and tried to enter the campus twice, only to be turned away both times by Arkansas National Guard troops, there under orders from Governor Orval Faubus. She then confronted an angry mob of people—men, women, and teenagers—opposing integration, chanting, “Two, four, six, eight, we ain’t gonna integrate.” Eckford made her way through the mob and sat on a bus bench at the end of the block. She was eventually able to board a city bus, and went to her mother’s workplace.
Because all of the city’s high schools were closed the following year, Eckford did not graduate from Central High School, but she had taken correspondence and night courses and so had enough credits. She was accepted by Knox College in Illinois but soon returned to Little Rock to be closer to her parents. She also attended Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, and has a BA in history.
Eckford served in the U.S. Army for five years, serving for her first two as a pay clerk and then, upon reenlisting, worked as an information specialist and wrote for the Fort McClellan, Alabama, and the Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, newspapers. Eckford has held various jobs throughout her life. She has been a waitress, history teacher, welfare worker, unemployment and employment interviewer, and a military reporter. She currently works as a probation officer in Little Rock.
Eckford was awarded the prestigious Spingarn Medal by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as were the rest of the Little Rock Nine and Daisy Bates, in 1958. In 1997, Elizabeth 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 famous Will Counts photograph, and during the reconciliation rally of 1997, the two former adversaries made speeches together. In 1999, President Bill Clinton presented the nation’s highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal, to the members of the Little Rock Nine. She is currently a probation officer in Little Rock and is the mother of two sons.
In 2018, Eckford released a book for young readers, The Worst First Day: Bullied while Desegregating Central High, co-authored with Dr. Eurydice Stanley and Grace Stanley and featuring artwork by Rachel Gibson. Later that year, the Elizabeth Eckford Commemorative Bench was dedicated at the corner of Park and 16th streets, and she received the Community Truth Teller Award from the Arkansas Community Institute. In 2024, she was honored as a Living Legend by the Military Women’s Memorial based in Arlington, Virginia.
For additional information:
Bates, Daisy. The Long Shadow of Little Rock. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1986.
Beals, Melba Pattillo. Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Desegregate Little Rock’s Central High School. New York: Washington Square Books, 1994.
Eckford, Elizabeth. “Interview with Elizabeth Eckford.” September 4, 2002. Audio from Grif Stockley Papers, BC.MSS.01.01, Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Bobby L. Roberts Library of Arkansas History & Art, Central Arkansas Library System: Elizabeth Eckford Interview (accessed July 11, 2023).
Jacoway, Elizabeth, and C. Fred Williams, eds. Understanding the Little Rock Crisis: An Exercise in Remembrance and Reconciliation. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1999.
Kwasnik, Brianna. “Marching On.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, September 5, 2021, pp. 1E, 4E. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/sep/05/marching-on/ (accessed July 11, 2023).
Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site Visitor Center. Little Rock, Arkansas. http://www.nps.gov/chsc/ (accessed July 11, 2023).
Ly, My. “Eckford of LR Nine Honored for Service.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 24, 2024, pp. 1A, 7A. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2024/mar/23/little-rock-nines-eckford-honored-for-her/ (accessed March 25, 2024).
Margolick, David. Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock. New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 2011.
———. “Through a Lens, Darkly.” Vanity Fair. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/09/littlerock200709 (accessed July 11, 2023).
Roy, Beth. Bitters in the Honey: Tales of Hope and Disappointment across Divides of Race and Time. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1999.
Stanley, Eurydice. “Radiating from Within.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, November 13, 2022, pp. 1E, 4E. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/nov/13/radiating-from-within/ (accessed July 11, 2023).
The following is republished from the National Park Service. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
On Wednesday, September 4, 1957, ten African American students attempted to enter Central High for the first time. The previous evening, the principals of Dunbar and Horace Mann had informed these students that they would be going to Central the next day. Daisy Bates, President of the Arkansas Conference of Branches for the NAACP, had called the families of the students to inform them of the logistics for that Wednesday morning: do not come to Central High alone, but meet near the school around 8:30 a.m. where a group of local African American and white ministers would escort the students to the high school.
Elizabeth Eckford did not receive notice about this plan of action – the Eckfords do not have a telephone. Mrs. Bates intended to try to reach the Eckfords on Wednesday morning, but forgot in the hurried pace of the morning. Elizabeth rode a bus to Central, approached the school just before 8:00 a.m. and saw the soldiers of the Arkansas National Guard surrounding the school. Barred by the soldiers in several failed attempts to be allowed past their ranks, Elizabeth found herself in the throes of an angry mob of protesters numbering over 300+ on Park Street. Chants [“Two, four, six, eight! We don’t want to integrate!”], racial epithets, terroristic threats and spit descended down on this fifteen-year old student as she attempted to make her way to the end of Park Street where perceived safety awaited her at another bus stop and bench. After arriving at the bus stop, Elizabeth waited for 35 minutes; in the interim, she is denied entrance to Ponder’s Drug and supported by Benjamin Fine and Grace Lorch.
“The mob of twisted whites, galvanized into vengeful action by the inaction of the heroic state militia, was not willing that the young school girl should get off so easily. Elizabeth Eckford had walked into the wolf’s lair, and now that they felt she was fair game, the drooling wolves took off after their prey. The hate mongers, who look exactly like other, normal white men and women, took off down the street after the girl.” – Buddy Lonesome, St. Louis Argus
“Here she is this little girl, this tender little thing, walking with this whole mob baying at her like a pack of wolves seeking to destroy a little lamb.” – Benjamin Fine, New York Times
Unveiled in 2018, a replica of the bench stands in the place where Elizabeth’s first attempt at integration ended on that September day. The bench and surrounding plaques are the result of a student-led project by the Central High School Memory Project in collaboration with the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, the National Park Service and other partners. The Memory Project, a group inspired by the American Memory Project at the Library of Congress, immerses students in the oral history of civil rights and human rights through hands-on, inter-generational learning and requires students to analyze causes/effects of historical events as well as the resulting impact on both individuals in their families and institutions in our communities.
The following is republished from the National Park Service. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
After 60 years, the infamous photo of Elizabeth Eckford walking through the mob in front of Little Rock Central High School still serves as a symbol of white resistance against integration in the Civil Rights Movement. Along with the other eight students, Elizabeth faced her share of adversity within the walls of Central High and can recall numerous incidents of harassment and hostility at the hands of her white peers. After Governor Faubus closed all public high schools in Little Rock to prevent further integration during the 1958-1959 school year, Elizabeth moved to St. Louis, Missouri where she obtained a GED. Eckford served in the U.S. Army as a pay clerk, information specialist, and newspaper writer. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. For her great contributions to social justice, Eckford has received many prestigious awards such as the Congressional Gold Medal, the NAACP Spingarn Medal, and the Humanitarian Award presented by the National Conference for Community and Justice. Today, Eckford is still a strong proponent of tolerance in every aspect of life.