Early in 2000 Cathy Collins, the sociologist who had conducted the racial healing seminar Elizabeth and Hazel had attended, invited them for catfish at a local restaurant. Collins planned to write her dissertation on the two of them, and wanted to discuss the project. She had picked up no bad vibes that evening, but Elizabeth had: Hazel seemed very much on edge. Her instincts were sound. Hazel had had enough.
From one of the self-help books she had taken out of the library, Hazel had learned that before making any crucial decision, Benjamin Franklin had always prepared a chart, listing the arguments, pro and con. So, sitting on her bed, yellow legal pad in hand, Hazel did just that. “Do I want to continue to participate with Elizabeth in presentations, a book, Cathy Collins pHD ect.,” she’d written on top of the first page. She then drew a line down the middle, with “Why” on one side and “Why Not” on the other.
She started with the why nots.
1. The prejudice I have encountered in the past 2 years [from] blacks + Whites.
A. she just wants attention and to write a book
B. Was she sincere [or] just wanted attention (many have erroneously [assumed] I just apologized in 1997 not 42 [sic] years ago make judgements with few facts).
2. I want to be happy and dealing with this issue does not make me happy
3. the time involved to prepare reading pondering = participating that I could be spending with my family (what’s important to me)
4. lack of Common goal with Elizabeth.
A. The realization at 58 We don’t have but maybe 15 years of good health left to do what we want to do
B. This time subtracts from time spent on preparation for retirement
5. EE’s attitude from the beginning “don’t make too much of this picture” she had her mind made up from the beginning to create a negative out come (Will Counts)
+ “The book would not have a happy ending” How could she know? Unless she was determined for it to be so?
+ “She has no hope.”
Her hateful behavior toward me in Indiana and Chicago the sour look (picture) as if a smile or to be happy
would betray the suffering of a victim
“I want to lead”
“How does it feel to steal the show?”
“pissing and calling it rain”?
Snatching the microphone both times …
6. I do this by choice
I don’t HAVE to
7. If there is no hope why bother?
That filled four pages. Then, she turned to the “Why” side of the ledger. And she could think of nothing to write.
There were reasons, of course, but she had become too embittered to see them. So now she made another call to Elizabeth. Like the first one, it didn’t last long; it didn’t have to. She just said she didn’t want to do any more programs together. As she remembered it, Elizabeth was surprised. “Oh, was I rude?” she asked. Hazel said nothing: she felt Elizabeth already knew the answer. Having effectively engineered the breakup, Elizabeth didn’t object when Hazel completed it.
Hazel took down the “reconciliation” poster, which she had framed and hung in her library. (Elizabeth had also gotten one, but had long ago given it away.) She also concocted an alibi, in case anyone asked for an explanation. She would blame it on her family, hinting they were unhappy with what she’d been doing. Better, even, she concluded, for people to think her marriage was shaky, or that her husband and children were intolerant, than to be labeled a racist yet again. At the very moment of their rupture, there emerged two more traits they shared: each was proud, and stubborn. With neither prepared to pick up the phone, the break became more complete than either had probably imagined, or intended. Not only would they do no more programs together; they would no longer see each other. Quietly, unceremoniously, their great experiment in racial rapprochement was over.
This time, there were no stories, no pictures, no posters. In fact, almost no one noticed. In the next couple of years, Collins interviewed various movers and shakers around town for her dissertation; repeatedly, they praised a relationship that was, in fact, defunct. Oddly, among those saluting their friendship was Elizabeth: Hazel, she told Collins, had helped give her a new life, and she was glad they’d met. But such thoughts were interred in an academic paper; Hazel never saw them.
The few people who knew about the rupture came up with their own postmortems. To Collins and Monk, Elizabeth and Hazel wanted fundamentally different things. Elizabeth sought to focus on the past, Hazel on the future. Both were necessary; neither sufficed. To Annie Abrams, Elizabeth’s sin was that she was not Nelson Mandela. Mandela’s uncanny ability to move on had been nurtured by decades of leadership and activism, experiences Elizabeth had never had—and, given her mental makeup, never could have had. She had Mandela’s intelligence but neither his wisdom nor his magnanimity. As for Hazel, Abrams believed she had been thrown into a situation for which she was utterly unprepared, exploited by people who turned her into a symbol, then dropped her as things got tough. All this was a pity; how many pairs of people have such extraordinary symbolic potential?
“The two unfortunately just didn’t get along,” said Skip Rutherford. To Vivian Counts, the hurdles Hazel faced were simply insurmountable. “It’s hard to say ‘I was wrong, I was a racist, I’m so sorry, I wish I had never done it,’ and she had to say it over and over and over,” she said. “She couldn’t take it anymore because no one believed her. People look at that photo and they can’t believe the person in it can change.”