and what made me embrace the principles and why i chose to become a republican and i told it in a way that some political what divisors have said was a little too honest and probably shouldn't have admitted some things but i did that so that the leader can relate because it is not about how many mistakes we've made with we have never fallen because you simply cannot pretend to be perfect. it's too exhausting to keep that facades. we are human but what it is about is whether you get back up again. whether you are willing to correct your mistakes and whether you are willing to forge ahead and in spite of the opposition so that's why i chose to address many of the things i did in my book and talk about where i came from and some of the hardships i personally

endured so that people can be inspired to get involved. this photograph from little rock arkansas was taken on a september 41957 outside central high school. david's bdy elizabeth and hazel uncovers the stories of the women in the center of the cocoa examining their lives leading up to that day and beyond. he talks about his book next in front of an audience which includes elizabeth at the clinton school of public service and arkansas. [applause] >> when you look at any great photograph, there is always more to see than what meets the eye. on said in the fourth, 1957, mr. mckeown black girl e. elizabeth, a member of the local rock nine was met by an angry mob during her first day to desegregate the central high

school. one of the many yelling behind her was an angry young white girl with narrow eyes and clenched teeth. elizabeth bryant. they captured this moment in one of the most recognizable photographs of the civil rights era. it depicted the hate and fear the of one young girl and the timid demeanor of another. this image circulated around our state, the nation and all around the world. did you remember hasim this for the first time made you feel? who knew that the photograph of these younger girls, one black, one white both 15-years-old born less than four months apart living within miles of one another and both beginning of the 11th grade would be so powerful in symbolizing the relations in america. even more powerful was the poster david margolick salles of

these two women. this time the women were smiling and embracing one another. the two women, one black, one white but this time they were no longer entering the 11th grade, they were growing and this was a poster of reconciliation. david came across the poster during a trip to little rock -- let's try that again. david came across the poster during a trip to little rock and for the past 12 years with other jobs under his belt he had investigated what lies within that historic image for his new book, elizabeth and hazel, two women of little rock. for countless interviews he's created a dual biography so that we are able to gain an understanding of the emotion behind the two women bound together by one single photograph. david margolick was a long time contributing editor for "vanity fair." he joined the team in 1995.

prior to that he held similar positions at "newsweek" and portfolio to read before "vanity fair" he worked from 1988 to 1995 as a legal affairs reporter for the new york post. he contributed to a column covering trials of adjacent some and william kennedy smith just to name a few. a graduate of the university of michigan and stanford law school david has written pieces including a long for article entitled a predator priest about bringing in a pedophile priest to justice in his hometown of connecticut. he's also the author of several books including beyond glory and strange fruit. david says of his new book it's an honest acknowledgment of racial sensitivity that exists in this country and how when it comes to race relations in america it can be very complex in an ongoing process.

the relationship between he listened and hazel is a metaphor for america's racial history. the reflection of how much more everyone, introducing david margolick. [applause] >> thank you i just want to make a connection in your nice introduction which is always a reporter for many years for "the new york times," not "the new york post." [laughter] that may not mean so much to people down here. but in new york there's a big distinction between the two. i also want to say that skip mentioned about elizabeth's

birthday and you might think it is just a great coincidence that we are having the date of my book happens to overlap with the elizabeth's birthday but that is really not the case. we deliberately wanted to commemorate elizabeth's birthday by publishing on it as a fitting tribute to her and just sort of we thought that it would be good karma we couldn't go wrong coming out what for her is an important birthday so that explains the non-coincidence. i want to thank scaap -- i've already been here once before as some of you recidivists in the audience know. i recognize some of you already coming of i want to thank skip for having me back when my work is further along considerably

further along than it was the last time it's always nice to have a second bite at the apple. just looking out i see a lot of familiar faces including a lot of people i interviewed and it's always gratifying to see a pile of books over there and some extra chairs they are unfolding at the last minute which as and author always likes to see. nikolai send me a list of the people that signed up for this afternoon's program, and all my blackberry i could only get the first half of them but i looked down the list and i saw max brantley, wiley branton, ralf brody, betsy and johanna louis that's only up through the aisles and these are all people who helped me and talked to me and to whom i am grateful and i am sure there are a lot more of

you. there are a lot more of you here and so it is a chance for me to thank all of you as well. one of the questions i am often asked in interviews about this book is when i first saw for the famous picture of elizabeth and hazel, and my answer is always the same. i have no idea. who can say when you first saw a picture like this. this is the kind of picture that just seeps into your consciousness. it doesn't happen in any particular time. it is for any sensitive person the kind of picture that you grow up with. you notice it at a very early age and it is just engraved in your mind. you never forget once you see it. it is just one of those pictures it is like the little boy with a cap with his hands up in the ghetto. it's one of those pictures you see once and it sticks with you.

it captures it is a picture that there are many famous pictures of the civil rights movement and we all know the images of the fire hoses and the german shepherds and the heartbreaking images of people sitting in at lunch counters having ketchup and coffee poured on their head or freedom riders being beaten, but this picture is different. there's something different about this picture and what is it? what is it about this picture that stands out in our minds? i think there's a lot of things about it but it's particularly the face, the face of hazel puts it apart. i say in the book that the picture is of elizabeth and hazel but it's really more of westie as elizabeth. if you look carefully at the picture elizabeth is already sort of walking out of the frame and the elizabeth is even now

the focus a little bit. it's hazel to whom your eyes are drawn immediately and the way that it fell together it is all just perfect staging in a way. the lighting is perfect. the lighting is coming in from the site. it's early morning. it's right. it sets her face apart. it's in perfect focus and support from everybody else in the picture. she just stands out, and then there's the expression on the face and what is that expression? it captures what picture better captures the attitude of the south towards what was going on. the attitude of the south towards the segregation of 1957. the absolute rage, the indignation the southerners felt, the contempt for black people that's captured in that

picture. to use a sort of more modern notion there's also the notion that is generally applied now to the modern warfare. there is the asymmetry of the picture. the fact that the forces, the power in the picture of so disproportionate only one black face in the picture elizabeth surrounded by all these diseases and all of the power and the force and the influence and everything is all gathered in the community. elizabeth is very much alone. so, elizabeth's face is the only face she showed up that day she was the first black i say in the room we all talk about the little rock nine. at that moment she was the

little rock one. it took me awhile until i actually got a good print of the picture. elizabeth is hard to read in a way behind the sunglasses that she was wearing and it's kind of hard to know what she was feeling at that moment she is described in many locations but unless you study the picture very carefully which requires a good print and like any good picture you are always discovering something new every time you see, and i notice that if you look behind those sunglasses you can see into her eyes you can see several things. you can see the sadness in her eyes, you can see the fear of course, you can see a certain kind of resignation as if she almost expected something like this to happen.

you can see heartbreak. study that picture some time and you will see all of those things in her eyes. so that's my answer to the question of what i saw in the picture the first time. the second time she described to you i was in a little rock to do the story of clinton related story truth be told about paula jones if he remembered her, and i had sort of limited enthusiasm about doing the story to begin with and i think it was probably my good fortune that she wouldn't speak with me and so the story never happened and that may be just as well but of course as an amateur student of american history i knew all about central high school and i know about the picture so i made a pilgrimage over to the mobil station which was then the

visitors center and that was when i saw the poster of elizabeth and hazel come and i was just amazed to see the picture. i didn't know anything about the two of them ever getting together again. i guess the story was sort of a local story, and i have missed it. i hadn't read in the papers where i was coming and the idea that these people, these archetype antagonistic had come together and there they were smiling and seeing standing in front of central life of now there is a story, there is a real story. so it was at that point i started to make some phone calls coming and i don't remember honestly whether it was that visit or another visit, but i'm pretty sure the i saw the two of them very quickly the two of them were still speaking at that point and i and arranged a visit

with the two of them. it was memorable for me because we all went out to a diner. hazel's husband, elizabeth and i went to this barbecue place i think it was a barbecue place outside of little rock and it wasn't sims. i discovered sims leader and i became a repeat customer, and it was a historic occasion because i remember that elizabeth insisted on treating us all for lunch that day. it was the first time he elizabeth had just gotten her first credit card and she had a piece of plastic and she wasn't sure that it actually worked.