In old photos of racial justice, there are always photos of the subject. The defiant freedom rider, the student demanding a seat at a white table, men and women walking across a bridge, arms linked.

In the fringes of these photos are the cops, the parents, the students, the business owners, and the residents who didn’t want to see life change. Some are openly hostile. Some are staring. Some are making faces. Some draw blood, some are turning their backs and walking away.

In the edges of these pieces of frozen history, I wonder most often about the white women and girls in the background of the Elizabeth Eckford photo. These girls are just about my mother’s age. After screaming and sneering at a classmate they hated on the basis of race, they moved on to college, raise children, have careers.

It has always amazed me that white women, when given the choice between siding with their sex and white supremacy, choose the side of white supremacy. Rather than presenting a united front with Ms. Eckford, they have chosen to side with white supremacy, and the scraps it gives us.

Rather than seeking greater liberation for all women, white women decided they would step on the backs of Black women and take the scraps that White Supremacy affords. White women would rather go to college and be pigeonholed into careers that were only set aside for them. They would rather manage inequitable households where they carry the majority of the domestic labor. White women would rather still be paid unfairly, setting themselves on top of a strange pyramid of who can get the closest to a white man’s wage.

White women – White Supremacy will never give us what we want. No matter how long or loud we scream. The only way we can reach equity is to walk with all women, standing up to the toxicity of White Supremacy and all its nuance.

The white women and girls who yelled at Elizabeth Eckford may now be demanding equal pay at work, realizing their retirement funds are 30-40% less than their white male counterparts. They may have spent the last years in marriages they hated due to financial inequity or abuse. They may have been forced to watch while their children dated and married people of other races.

And what progress did they make by screaming at the back of Elizabeth Eckford as she bravely stepped forward into history?

Only the white women in the fringes of these photos can tell us for sure.

But we can give an educated guess as to their impact on history’s progress forward, as they are unnamed, simply labeled: ‘fellow students.’