Summary Of Warriors Don T Cry

Melba Pattillo Beals is a woman who has recalled her memories of the Little Rock Nine and the integration of Little Rock Central High School during the years 1957-1958 through her book Warriors Don’t Cry. Within this book Melba recalls on page 155, “ I wanted to be alone so I could search for the part of my life that existed before integration, the Melba I was struggling to hold on to… I was trying hard not to face the notion growing inside me that I was no longer normal, no longer like my other friends.” During these years of integration both blacks and whites felt a sense of abnormality as seen through Beals and her fellow students accounts throughout Warriors Don’t Cry. The experiences that the Little Rock Nine and white students in Central

In this time segregation was not really comprehensible to white children and teenagers for they were always within safe, white communities. The white children and teenagers thought that normal was being surrounded by other whites since that is how they had always seen it and how their parents believed it should be. As the integration of Little Rock Central High School took place the hatred and strong opinions of parents harbored within the bloodlines to the adolescents. The moment that the white community felt a shift within normalcy, they began armed and angry in hopes to protect their innocence. See, the white community along with Governor Faubus sought so strongly to keep integration away from the area was because they did not want to admit that they have always been mistreating blacks and that this was infact wrong. This is shown when Link, a white student in Central High opens his eyes to the harsh cruelty that the white community along with his family has oppressed the blacks with. In chapter, 25 Link states on page 271, “ You can do a news interview saying we're not such bad people and that everything is getting better at school . That way everybody in the world won’t think we’re all villains.” In this excerpt he is saying that the white community in Arkansas are viewed now as villains while he doesn’t want to be

(Beals,312)” This saying comes from a Sanskrit prayer that symbolizes peace and acceptance. Nama means “to bow” and te means “to you” this can easily be seen as Beal finally being at peace with the world and that her idea of normalcy had changed to that of acceptance of all God’s creatures. At the beginning of the book Melba Beals thought that normalcy was how life was before Central High which as stated previously was life at her old school with her black friends and boyfriend Vince who never thought about race or differences. “The two days since I first went to Central felt like I was living some stranger’s life...No matter what, I’m going to be a regular person. I’m going to have my usual date with Grandma and my secret, pretend date with Vine…(Beals, 76)” Normalcy for them before Central High was the same as any child and teenager which was to be surrounded by friends, family,and fun. As the book progresses however, her views for normalcy goes from wanting to go back to the years before Central High to her becoming a grown woman activist striving for the future. Instead of taking the easy way to what she thought was normal which was actually segregation, she began to notice just how oppressed her race was and wanted to become the warrior that Grandma India thought she was. Towards the ending of the book Melba’s views for normalcy is draw to a