Book features famous IU professor’s photo on cover, revisits complicated story
(posted on Saturday, August 04, 2007)
An internationally known scholar of southern history and race relations will speak about understanding the integration crisis at Little Rock, Arkansas’ Central High School that occurred fifty years ago this fall. Elizabeth Jacoway will give a lecture at the Indiana University School of Education on Wednesday, October 10, at 7:30. Jacoway has just published “Turn Away Thy Son,” the work of thirty years of research into the circumstances surrounding the memorable events of September, 1957. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine black students from entering school. President Eisenhower sent in U.S. Army troops two weeks later to escort the students into the building.
Jacoway’s book is the product of personal experience and scholarly research. She grew up in Little Rock, and is related to Virgil Blossom, the superintendent of schools during the crisis. After receiving the blessing of her father, who had just retired as a Little Rock lawyer and wasn’t enthusiastic about dredging up memories while he was practicing, she began visiting museum archives in 1976 to examine the personal notes of Blossom, Faubus, Eisenhower, and African-American community leader Daisy Bates. Jacoway took part in ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the crisis last month in Little Rock.
The crisis remains vivid for many people a half-century after because of the powerful images Americans saw, Jacoway said. “People had just bought televisions, and they were used to watching ‘Leave it to Beaver,’ and harmless Disney kinds of things,” she said. “All of a sudden, in their living room, in their own home, they are seeing the face of hate in an American city being directed at an innocent black child.”
The iconic print image came from the camera of Will Counts, then a photographer for the Arkansas Democrat, later a professor at Indiana University’s School of Journalism. The famous photo of a white student screaming at one of the nine black students is on the cover of Jacoway’s book. Jacoway helped Counts connect with Hazel Massery, the white student in the photo, and Elizabeth Eckford, the black student, for a reunion photo and discussion during the 40th anniversary ten years ago. Jacoway said Counts got incredible photographs others missed because the Arkansas native knew the terrain and tried to blend in. “I’m sure everybody’s probably read the story that he went home and put on a plaid shirt that someone had given him for Christmas that he hadn’t worn,” Jacoway said. “It made him blend in with the crowd.”
Jacoway’s book takes a different view of some of the circumstances. While many have heaped scorn on Faubus over the years, Jacoway said there are many more who should take criticism. She said she began to get hints when she started looking at some interviews done 15 years after the crisis. “I began to get hints from those interviews kinds of information that hadn’t been suggested anywhere else,” she said. She said Blossom really pushed Faubus into his actions. Others looked for political advantage through the circumstances and also forced the governor into taking action. While her book does not absolve Faubus, it does emphasize many other contributing factors that created the crisis. She said Faubus, who once attended a neo-Communist college, wasn’t a racist in his thinking although he appeared it in his actions. “He didn’t grow up surrounded by the disease of racism, he didn’t understand its strength,” she said. “He didn’t understand what an evil force that could be. He though it was one of the pawns that could be pushed around the chessboard of southern politics.”
Jacoway’s appearance is free and open to the public. It will be in the School of Education auditorium at the Wright Education Building, 201 N. Rose Avenue, in Bloomington.
Media Outlets: the following comments are available as mp3 files on the IU School of Education Website at http://education.indiana.edu/news/tabid/5663/Default.aspx. Look for the story headline under “Podcasts.”
Jacoway says when she first began to look at interviews with key figures in the Central High crisis, she started sensing a more complicated story:
“I began to find out from those interviews kinds of information that hadn’t been suggested anywhere else that I had been reading. I began to get hints from those interviews that the role that my kinsman played, Virgil Blossom, in the crisis was not as it had been portrayed. The traditional heroes of the story are Virgil Blossom, Brooks Hays and Harry Ashmore. I began to get glimmers from those interviews that something was amiss in the role of all three of those characters. And of course the devil in the piece has always been Orval Faubus, and I through reading these interviews with lots of people began to see that the story was much more complicated and the blame was spread much more widely than to just be heaped on one man.”
Jacoway says Faubus was frustrated by the Eisenhower administration, a judge who didn’t help the process, and the Little Rock school board:
“Three times the Justice Department didn’t call him back but finally they sent a representative, Arthur Caldwell, and he basically told Faubus “there’s nothing we can do.” So Faubus feels he has been called upon by a Republican administration to enforce a judicial decision from the federal level. He’s been betrayed by the Federal judge. He’s been betrayed by the school board he was trying to help. He has 3 days. He has ulcers and he made bad decisions under intense pressure.”
The photo taken by Will Counts, later an IU professor, is the most memorable image, Jacoway says:
“Everyone remembers that photo, which is why I put it on the cover of the book, because it flashed immediately around the world and it became a major liability in America’s struggle in the Cold War. I mean, the Communists loved that photograph; it seemed to be proof that Democracy really was not working in America. Will was a youngster. He was just newly back in town ready to be a professional man. He knew the terrain well enough to know that it was not smart to go out there with a suit on and carrying a camera. I’m sure everybody’s probably read the story that went home and put on a plaid shirt that someone had given him for Christmas that he hadn’t worn it but it made him blend in with the of the crowd; so he was able to get lots of incredible photographs that day that others missed.”
Jacoway says a half-century after the crisis, things are still in turmoil in the Little Rock schools:
“The Little Rock School System has been under Federal court supervision for 50 years and just in the past 4 or 5 months has been declared unitary in its status, so that it no longer needs Federal court supervision. Although the school board has now entered into an agreement where they’re willing to, the Little Rock School Board, where they’re willing to appeal that decision and perhaps go back under Federal supervision. But the school situation in Little Rock is , as it is across the country, is very, I think maybe tragic is too hard a word, but it’s a very uncomfortable situation and it is far from what anyone would have hoped would be the state of affairs in Little Rock 50 years later.”
For More Information, Contact:
Chuck Carney
Director of Communications and Media Relations
Office: (812) 856-8027
ccarney@indiana.edu