Huckaby, Elizabeth

Educator.

Arkansas educator and author. Associated with Central High School in Little Rock for 39 years, Huckaby began her career as an English teacher in 1930 and in 1954 assumed the responsibilities of Vice Principal for Girls. She later wrote her version of the 1957 integration crisis at Central High which was published by the Louisiana State University Press in 1980.

Elizabeth Paisley Huckaby was born in 1905 in Hamburg, Arkansas. She attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and was hired as an English teacher at Central High School in 1930. She married Glen T. Huckaby in 1933. In 1955, Huckaby was promoted to Vice Principal for Girls. In this role, she oversaw the first black female students during the integration of Central High School in 1957. Huckaby chronicled what occurred during the crisis while trying to keep school functioning as normally as possible. During the 1958-59 school year in which Governor Orval Faubus closed the public schools, Huckaby turned her journal entries into a running narrative that was to become the first draft of her manuscript. Huckaby was widowed in 1967 without children and continued to work until her retirement in 1969. Huckaby held onto her manuscript until she retired, saying that she wanted to keep her job. Publishers repeatedly rejected the manuscript, first in 1969-71 and then again in her second attempt to get her narrative published in 1976-77. It was only after Time-Life decided to produce a television movie from her story did the LSU Press agree to publish her book Crisis at Central High: Little Rock 1957-58 in 1980. The movie debuted on CBS in 1980 and starred Joanne Woodward as Huckaby. In her retirement, Huckaby spent her time traveling to places like Europe, New England, and the Pacific coast and transcribing almost 600 letters her grandmother left behind. In 1985, the University of Arkansas Press published Tulip evermore: Emma Butler and William Paisley, Their lives in letters, 1857-1887, edited by Huckaby. In 1999, Huckaby died at the age of 93.