Review Of Melba Pattillo Beals 'Warriors Don' T Cry

Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Central High School by Melba Pattillo Beals is a memoir of Beals’ experience as one of the Little Rock Nine, a group of students in Arkansas who were the first African American students to integrate the state’s public high schools. Beals was only fifteen when the decision was made that schools in Arkansas would integrate. Beals details her experience from the moment she found out she had been chosen to integrate into Little Rock High School, to having to endure walking the halls and trying to learn in an environment where almost everyone hated her on the basis of something she could not control. She reveals instances of mental and physical abuse from students and

She includes many details from a first-hand account of her experiences with thousands of people hurling insults and lunging to harm her, a feeling that many readers have not had any experience with. In particular, it was hard but important to read many instances when adults looked at Beals, a fifteen-year-old girl, and made it very apparent that they wanted her dead. I have never been in any circumstance in which someone has looked into my eyes and told me they wanted to inflict harm on me on the basis of my race. Even less, I have never felt discriminated against because of my race. Beals evokes emotions in her readers as they are provided a lens to feel what it was like to live the reality for African Americans in the era of segregation and Jim Crow. She does a great job of this for all of her readers, but it may be even more impactful for those who have never experienced brute discrimination, to see through her eyes the horrors that African American citizens faced during this time

Nonetheless, if one is willing to tackle a memoir about the Little Rock Nine, one should be willing to read some grim materials. I would recommend this book to anyone, but especially to those who wish to gain a more personal perspective of the experiences of the students of the Little Rock Nine and Civil Rights Activists in general. I feel I have a more open mindset when it comes to learning about the Civil Rights Movement after reading this book. While these people are heroes and were integral in helping to advance the Civil Rights of all Americans, at the end of the day they are people too. They all have families and lives outside of their work and studies. They sacrifice the ability to have “normal” or safe personal lives in order to advance the rights of the people in their communities. Because of this, I would definitely recommend this book, it was