Benjamin Fine’s and Grace Lorch’s Choices

In her memoir, Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas branch of the NAACP, reported on a conversation with Benjamin Fine of The New York Times, who was among the first reporters to cover the Little Rock story. He came to her house a few days after the National Guard kept Elizabeth Eckford from entering the school. Bates quotes Fine as saying:

“I was standing in front of the school that day. Suddenly there was a shout—‘They’re here!’ … I saw a sweet little girl who looked about fifteen, walking alone. She tried several times to pass through the guards. The last time she tried, they put their bayonets in front of her. When they did this, she became panicky. For a moment she just stood there trembling. Then she seemed to calm down and started walking toward the bus stop with the mob baying at her heels like a pack of hounds. The women were shouting, ‘Get her!’ … She finally made it to the bus stop and sat down on the bench. I sat down beside her and said, ‘I’m a reporter from The New York Times. May I have your name?’ She just sat there, her head down. Tears were streaming down her cheeks from under her sunglasses. Daisy, I don’t know what made me put my arm around her, lifting her chin, saying, ‘Don’t let them see you cry.’ Maybe she reminded me of my fifteen-year-old daughter, Jill.

“There must have been five hundred around us by this time. … Suddenly I saw a white-haired, kind-faced woman fighting her way through the mob. She looked at Elizabeth and then screamed at the mob, ‘Leave this child alone! Why are you tormenting her? Six months from now, you will hang your heads in shame.’ … The woman, who I found out later was Mrs. Grace Lorch, the wife of Dr. Lee Lorch, professor at Philander Smith College, turned to me and said, ‘We have to do something. Let’s try to get a cab.’ 

“We took Elizabeth across the street to the drugstore. I remained on the sidewalk with Elizabeth while Mrs. Lorch tried to enter the drugstore to call a cab. But the hoodlums slammed the door in her face and wouldn’t let her in. She pleaded with them to call a cab for the child. They closed in on her saying, ‘Get out of here … ’ Just then the city bus came. Mrs. Lorch and Elizabeth got on. Elizabeth must have been in a state of shock. She never uttered a word. When the bus pulled away, the mob closed in around me. ‘We saw you put your arm around [Elizabeth Eckford]. Now it’s your turn.’ … A man asked me, ‘Are you a Jew?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He then said to the mob, ‘Let him be! We’ll take care of him later.’

“The irony of it all, Daisy, is that during all this time the national guardsmen made no effort to protect Elizabeth or help me. Instead, they threatened to have me arrested—for inciting to riot.” ¹

• 1Daisy Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A Memoir (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1962), 69–71.