ipl-logo

Analysis Of Melba Patillo Beals 'Warriors Don' T Cry

1099 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: An article on the brown v board of education court case

Maya Clement
Professor Clemens
Making of America
21 March 2023
Warriors Don’t Cry Response Melba Patillo Beal’s experiences as a child and in high school were influenced by various events that affected how she answered to the integration crisis at Little Rock Central High and how she lived her life going forth. Melba lives with her grandmother, India, her mother Loiws, her father Howell, and her little brother Conrad. She was raised in a household that valued the importance of education, and her family taught her to value herself and believe that she is capable of anything with perseverance and hard effort. Melba Beals, however, was regularly exposed to prejudice and segregation, which made her aware of the injustices that existed in the world. …show more content…

There she excelled, but she wanted a greater opportunity for a better education, so she applied to Central High School because of the decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. Without her family knowing that she applied, she was chosen to be one of the nine Black students who would attend and integrate Little Rock Central High School. On their first day at Central High School, Beals and the other eight Black students were waited on by crowds of white people who wanted to keep them out of the school. They were greeted with violent acts and hateful language. Governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, had sent soldiers from the National Guard to disrupt the integration, temporarily prevented the students from entering the school, and did not protect them. Melba did not feel safe with the troops and was constantly harassed and attacked by students during school. She was spat on, beaten, called repulsive insults. Teachers and the school administration, did nothing except enabled this behavior to persist, leaving Melba on her own to defend herself. Melba desperately wants to return back to her life before the integration started. She is unable to leave the house because her family is afraid she may be attacked. She has been constantly swarmed with news reporters who question about her life since the integration. Wanting to resume to her normal life desperately, Melba is miserable and upset. After receiving death threats from white people who claim to know her address and are threatening to kill her and her family, she is afraid even to answer the

Show More
Related
1963 Words | 8 Pages

Melba’s continued attendance of Central High is causing problems for her family, as her mother is nearly fired because of Melba. Finally, Ernie, the oldest of the Little Rock Nine, graduates in May. After a tour of the United States, Judge Lemley delays integration for three years but the NAACP intends to fight the ruling. In response, the governor shuts down Little Rock’s high schools. India dies in 1958 of leukemia.

Read More
708 Words | 3 Pages

Melba Pattilo Beals is an African American woman, who was born on December 7, 1941. Warriors Don’t Cry is was memoir of Beals’ encounter in the Civil Right Era. With memorable encounters with the Little Rock 9, who were a group of 9 African American students who were enrolled to Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. Central High was an all-white school before the integration. Leading up to the integration, Beals’ childhood was extremely painful encounters, which no child should experience in their childhood.

Read More
109 Words | 1 Pages

Both James Baldwin and Melba Beals are well experienced in living in a society where whites are viewed as superior to people of color, and they both know how it felt to feel ashamed in their own skin. In Baldwins letter "My Dungeon Shook" he writes to his nephew about succeeding in such an unfair world. In Melba's "Warriors Don't Cry" she tells her harrowing experiences as she tries to pursue the integration of Central High School as a member of the Little Rock Nine. Melba's experiences and the unfair world Baldwin describes have many similarities and it shows how society's treatment of others can dramatically affect someone's

Read More
887 Words | 4 Pages

She knows that she deserves better than that. Melba fights to be seen as equal and will tell people when they are doing something wrong. Melba’s resourcefulness is key in the many experiences she went

Read More
843 Words | 4 Pages

Have you ever faced a life-changing experience that changed your life and country? If so, you are similar to Melba Pattillo Beals in Warriors Don’t Cry, Jackie Robinson in I Never Had it Made, and Feng Ru in “The Father of Chinese Aviation.” They all took a risk and faced life-changing experiences that changed their lives and their countries in some way. Melba Pattillo Beals faced life-changing experiences that helped improve education for African Americans. She endured challenges like facing threats from white people and coming across discrimination.

Read More
1729 Words | 7 Pages

Melba Pattillo Beals’ novel, Warriors Don’t Cry, takes on an amazing first-hand account of the integration of Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. Melba’s work is formed as she recounts many of the stunning events that she and the other eight students were forced to go through that challenged them and pushed them beyond their limits. Because of the discrimination, taunting, and other racial injustices these students had to go through, the nine students were indeed Warriors because Warriors themselves must face great hardships in times of battle. And though this battle was a tough one, Melba found confidence in continuing with the war for integration in herself and her grandmother.

Read More
445 Words | 2 Pages

Studies show that in 2011, 51.4 percent of black students in the Northeast attended schools where the student population was 90 percent to 100 percent minority? That means that more than half of the percent of black students attend schools that have mostly black students. In Warriors Don’t Cry, by Melba Pattillo Beals, Melba is a strong person because she listens to her elders, trusts in God, and endures physical and mental abuse. Overall, Melba was a strong person throughout the integration. Melba is a strong person, as shown in this quote, “One nigger down, eight to go” (Beals 220).

Read More
1344 Words | 6 Pages

Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattilo Beals is a memoir about Beals experiences and her journey while integrating Little Rocks Central High School. She wanted to share her story about what it was like to grow up in the middle of the civil rights movement and what it was like to be one of the nine students who were the first African Americans to integrate a public all white school. During and after reading the book a few thoughts went through my head. First, was my reaction at the horrific things that were done to Melba by integrationist in Central High. For example, while in the bathroom stall a group of girls locked her in and began dumping paper that was light on fire onto her.

Read More
1449 Words | 6 Pages

Melba shares her story and what she did to overcome the intense obstacles that tried to prevent her from an equal education. Beals was interviewed about her memoir and is quoted saying "Until I am welcomed everywhere as an equal simply because I am human, I remain a warrior on a battlefield that I must not leave. I continue to be a warrior who does not cry but who instead takes action. If one person is denied equality, we are all denied equality. "

Read More
1520 Words | 7 Pages

Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division to protect the nine students because Orval Eugene Faubus, Governor of Arkansas, was against African American kids attending an all white school. Yet, the brave nine African American students faced racial barriers to become the first black students to attend an all white school. A few years before the Little Rock Nine crisis, schools were desegregated. The Brown v. Board Education case took on several other cases in South Carolina, Delaware, Kansas, and Virginia. The case was clearly described how an African American is unable to enter a segregated school because of their race.

Read More
562 Words | 3 Pages

Melba realized what a big burden she had took on. She was scared, she realized that it wasn’t as easy as she thought. Melba stated in the book “ Sensations of courage, fear, and challenge haunted me.” This gave Melba hope she knew she had to go back. Melba lost friends because of this it stated “Anxious to catch their attention I waved out the window with a loud “Hi”.”

Read More
235 Words | 1 Pages

Is it possible for anyone to change the world? In Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Patillo Beals, Melba, an African-American teenager, attends Central High School, which is an all-white school. She faces many segregationists throughout her year at Central High, and despite that, she finishes the school year at Central High. In still I Rise by Maya Angelou, Angelou faces many tormentors. She is resilient and rises back up after each setback.

Read More
194 Words | 1 Pages

Melba Beals was one of the first nine black students to attend a white school. White people, angry segregationist mobs, and even the Arkansas governor tried to keep her and the other students from going to a white school. They expressed their resentment by being very rude and trying to block them from going in. But she didn’t yell back or get angry because she knew that it wouldn’t help her case of going to school. Beals says, “Some of the white people looked totally horrified, while others raised their fists to us.”

Read More
557 Words | 3 Pages

In the beginning of the story Melba didnt have alot of hope that attending Central was a good idea, because of all the riots and threats against her family. When Melba told her grandmother that she wanted to go back to Horace Mann she tells melba that nothing will change if she does. When Melba attends the court hearing on the integration case she tells reporters that she has every right to go to Central High School. Melba grows more hopeful in the story because she felt as if nothing good was going to come from going to Central but then she feels like she has the right to be

Read More
1680 Words | 7 Pages

In 1957, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas’s decision, segregation in public education violated the Fourteen Amendment, but Central High School refused to desegregate their school. Even though various school districts agreed to the court ruling, Little Rock disregarded the board and did not agree to desegregate their schools, but the board came up with a plan called the “Blossom plan” to form integration of Little Rock High despite disputation from Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus. Desegregating Central high encountered a new era of achievement of black folks into the possibility of integrating public schools, and harsh resistance of racial integration. Although nine black students were admitted into Little Rock harsh violence and

Read More

More about Analysis Of Melba Patillo Beals 'Warriors Don' T Cry

Related Topics

Open Document