On Wednesday night, the Gateway Arts Theater hosted the No Tears Project, a touring arts outreach program that was created to honor the Black students who desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, AR. The panel featured Lynn Jackson, the great-great-granddaughter of Dred and Harriet Scott; Percy Green, the man who climbed the Arch to protest the lack of Black people being hired; and Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, who desegregated that Arkansas high school.
KMOX's Carol Daniel spoke more with Eckford after the panel, and focused specifically on a comment Eckford had made to the audience about the importance of asking for help when it comes to mental illness.
Eckford told Daniel that she started therapy in 1980. Previously, she'd been given medications to help treat her severe depression and anxiety, but then found someone who specialized in treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She said that for a long time, because of the trauma she'd endured, she wouldn't talk about her experiences desegregating that high school.
"It's very, very painful, right, to talk about those things. Over a period of time, it becomes less painful. And over a period of time you learn ways to talk about it, where we're trying to not dredge up emotions," she said.
Eventually, she did start talking about it — kids in school started writing to her to come speak, and she couldn't say no. She also said that she knew one of the White students who had gone to the high school was telling stories that weren't accurate.
"Some of the white kids feel like they should be praised for not hitting us. They've said that in newspapers, and on television they feel like they should be acknowledged and praised because they did this," she said. Not doing anything, she said, would've been "a decision that allows the bullying to continue."
Eckford shared more about her journey with mental health, her experience with the famous photo of her walking into the school, getting the history of it right, and more. Listen to her conversation with Carol Daniel:
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