Summary Of Warriors Don T Cry

It’s been almost 60 years since our nation was in an uproar due to the varied opinions about the Civil Rights Movement. In the novel Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals, nine African American high school students transfer to an all white high school in an attempt to desegregate. We continue to tell these stories decades after the Civil Rights Movement happened. It’s important for us to remember these events in history. We need to keep the memory and the lessons from the civil rights movement alive. Why is it important? It’s important for us to keep telling these stories, and remember them for many reasons. First off, we owe it to the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement to learn from their stories and honor them. They sacrificed their

A pro to this approach, is that it makes up for the gradual decline in 101st officers. “As I stepped into the hallway, just for an instant the thought of fewer troops terrified me. But the warrior growing inside me squared my shoulders and put my mind on alert to do whatever was necessary to survive. ” (127). Another pro, is that it’s making her feel stronger, it says, “Warriors keep moving.” (128). By calling herself a warrior and telling herself to think like a soldier she is getting tougher. However, some cons to this technique, is that it ignores her feelings and it’s making her feel that it’s normal for her to treated like that. In the beginning of the book, she was so surprised that she could go to a drive-in movie and get food from the concession stand without being yelled at for being African American. Her new mindset just encourages that

For example, “One team concentrated on shoving us into lockers, while another focused on tripping us up or shoving us down staircases...” (143). On the other hand, the adults just ignored the situation and let the nine deal with it by themselves. Her teacher said, “I hope you don’t think we’re gonna browbeat our students to please you’all” (98). I don’t think that everyone that abused the nine were inherently bad, I think that the student’s were just raised to think like that, but there were definitely some bad people there. One older woman slapped Melba and spit on her face on pages seventy-four and seventy-five. That woman I believe is truly a bad person, because she is an adult and Melba was only a child. The kids who weren’t just inherently bad, probably acted like that towards them because their parents pressured them into it, they wanted to fit in, or maybe they were afraid to be nice to them and then get treated the same way. Link is a perfect example of this, because he wants to be nice to Melba in public, but instead he has to secretly call her and warn her about future harassment. “Link warned me that with the beginning of April, segregationists would feel compelled to speed up their efforts, in order to get us out of Central before we could complete a full school year”