Topic of Choice : Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals

Warriors Don't Cry

                                           by Melba Pattillo Beals

         I hardly suggest to everyone to read this book and became inspired to their story. It is about proving their selves that their appearance is not hindrance to prove that they deserve to be treated as person and be part of the community.

Warriors Don’t Cry begins when Melba and eight other black men and women they are called Little Rock Nine, return to their home state of Arkansas to meet the Governor Bill Clinton, their key to visit the Central High School in Little Rock and the nine of them were the first African-American students to be integrated into the school. Where there is an issue of separated schools between the whites and black in which the Supreme Court alleged that is illegal.

As the story goes by, the white Americans is not approved by the government decision about the Little Rock Nine attend in Central High School which cause a huge mob attack against the Little Rock Nine to stop attending school. Governor Faubus declares that he is going to send the Arkansas National Guard to the high school, though he does not say whether they are there to protect the nine or to stop them from entering the school. Finally, a few days after school has started, federal court judge Ronald Davies orders that the students be allowed to attend.

 As the Little Rock Nine attend to school, Melba and the other Little Rock Nine are being bullied and physically and mentally abused by the white whether inside or outside of Central High School but all issues and problems comes from the nine they become strong to face it, in fact the nine Little Rock have begun a tour in the northern states, where they are treated like heroes and celebrities. And eventually they graduated to school even though all the lawsuit and insult they encounter in their organization in NAACP they show all the efforts they have just to reached their dreams and live a happy life.

Melba Patillo Beals 

The main character and narrator of Warriors Don’t Cry. Melba is one of the Little Rock Nine (the first black students in the United States to attend a previously all-white high school). She fights violence in its many forms throughout her life.

White People

The main antagonist of Warriors Don’t Cry. White people which cause a huge mob attack in the Little Rock Nine. Persons who did not agree in the decision of the government that letting the African-American students to integrate into their school.

The Little Rock Nine have begun a tour of the northern states, where they are treated like heroes and celebrities. While Melba is waiting to return to school, Grandma India is diagnosed with leukemia and dies.

Melba Beals married a white man but she filed a divorce paper to achieve her dream to become a reporter.

Melba Joyner Pattillo Beals (née Pattillo; born December 7, 1941) is a journalist and member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who were the first to integrate Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. Melba Pattillo Beals grew up in a family who all valued and knew the importance of education. Her mother, Lois Marie Pattillo, a PhD, was one of the first black graduates of the University of Arkansas in 1954 and was a middle school English teacher at the time of the Little Rock Nine integration of Central High School. Her father, Howell Pattillo, worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Melba also has a brother, Conrad Pattillo, who served as a U.S. marshal in Little Rock, and they all lived with her grandmother, India Peyton at the time of the crisis. While attending Horace Mann High School in Little Rock, an all-black high school, Melba was aware that she was not receiving the same quality education as her peers at Central High School. Pattillo then volunteered to transfer to the all-white Central High School with eight other black students from Horace Mann and Dunbar Junior High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Melba was not aware at this time what she was up against. Volunteering for this cause meant putting herself at risk and in danger of others in the community and at school. In an interview with the San Francisco Examiner in 1997 Melba says, "Mostly what I think about when I think back is how sad for somebody (to go through that) when they're 15," "Because when you're 15 you want to be loved and accepted, and I just wasn't ready for the kind of response I would get coming to school". Beals recounted that the soldier assigned to protect her instructed her, “In order to get through this year, you will have to become a soldier. Never let your enemy know what you are feeling.” Beals took the soldier’s advice and endured what she could of the rest of the school year. She did not get to finish her school career there, because the governor, Orval Faubus closed all of the Little Rock schools the following year to block integration.