Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
by Melba Pattillo Beals
List Price:
Our Price: $3.93
You Save: $11.07 (74%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.10 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Melba Pattillo BealsEdition: Paperback
Published: 1995-02-01
ISBN: 0671866397
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Book Reviews of Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
Book Review: A Great Read!
Summary: 5 Stars
Warrior's Don't Cry is about a young girl faced with challenges larger than life. At the age of 15, she is chosen to be one of the 9 students to integrate Central High in Little Rock Arkansas. It is the true story of Melba and her 8 African American classmates as they face all of the challenges of being placed in the all white classrooms of Central High.
The book starts off with Melba's first day at school. We all know how stressful it is to start our first day in High School. These 9 students were never able to have a successful first day because of the hundreds of angry people surrounding the school, yelling "2-4-6-8 We don't want to integrate!" Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, takes the bus to school. As she gets off of the bus, she is faced with an angry white mob. She tries to circumvent them but they move along with her, creating a human barricade preventing her from going to school. This was during the times when people were hung from a noose by angry white mobs. Throughout the ordeal, Elizabeth keeps her head up and tries to get away. Melba and her mom concoct a plan to distract the hundreds of people and create an escape route for Elizabeth. Finally, she escapes and returns home safely.
Don't let the non-fiction genre intimidate you. This book is full of all the drama of a teenagers' life. This true story shows us how scary and difficult it was to be the only black students in a gigantic school. Every chapter gives you a look to the obstacles the Little Rock Nine had to face. On Melba's first day of school, she is called out of her name on numerous occasions. Even her teachers encourage her classmates' racist behavior. Students yell the N word at her in the middle of class and the unnamed teacher ignores it and just kept on teaching. During P.E., Melba is tripped and falls to the ground. A group of her own classmates attack her and kick her while she is down. Her clothes are in tatters and she is slightly bruised.
Melba's school experience is far from a normal, boring one. After her first days of school, the state militia is called in to mediate the transition. Each one of the Little Rock Nine are assigned a state militiaman to guard them and escort them from class to class during the day. This might seem to ameliorate the situation, but we know that it's not the solution when Melba is choked during a school pep rally.
What would you do if your classmates were out to hurt you and your teachers and principal and vice-principal could not properly protect you? Would you give up or would you keep trekking on? Read Warrior's Don't Cry to find out how Melba fares out in the end.
Summary of Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
You've gotta learn to defend yourself. Never let your enemy know what you are feeling.-- The soldier assigned to protect Melba
Please, God, let me learn how to stop being a warrior. Sometimes I just need to be a girl.
-- Melba's diary, on her sixteenth birthday
In 1957 Melba Pattillo turned sixteen. That was also the year she became a warrior on the front lines of a civil rights firestorm. Following the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board Education, she was one of nine teenagers chosen to integrate Little Rock's Central High School. This is her remarkable story.
You will listen to the cruel taunts of her schoolmates and their parents. You will run with her from the threat of a lynch mob's rope. You will share her terror as she dodges lighted sticks of dynamite, and her pain as she washes away the acid sprayed into her eyes. But most of all you will share Melba's dignity and courage as she refuses to back down.
General Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Progressive Arkansas
The Amphibians and Reptiles of Arkansasby Stanley E. Trauth, Henry W. Robison, Michael V. Plummer
University of Arkansas Press; Published: 2005-06-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $29.95
Arkansas WildlifeArkansas Game & Fish Commission; Arkansas Game & Fish Commission; Release date: 2002-02-08; Magazine; Magazine
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American Westby Dee Brown
Holt Paperbacks; Published: 2001-01-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.00
Price in other shops:
Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpieceby Michael Streissguth
Da Capo Press; Published: 2005-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.58
Price in other shops:
Yet a Stranger: Why Black Americans Still Don't Feel at Homeby Deborah Mathis
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 2002-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.64
Price in other shops:
Thinking Back: The Perils of Writing Historyby C. Vann Woodward
Louisiana State University Press; Published: 1987-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.89
Price in other shops:
Promises Kept: A Memoirby Sid McMath
University of Arkansas Press; Published: 2003-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.03
Price in other shops:
Making a Poem: Some Thoughts About Poetry And the People Who Write Itby Miller Williams
Louisiana State University Press; Published: 2006-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.33
Price in other shops:
Boys Like Us (Stonewall Inn Editions)by Peter McGehee
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 1992-02-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $55.00
Sounds Made In Mountains: Northwest Arkansas Music Volume 1Music CD
Best price: $15.95
Similar Books and other products
Black Boy: (American Hunger) (Perennial Classics)by Richard Wright
Published: 1998-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.26
Price in other shops:
The Outsidersby S. E. Hinton
Puffin; Published: 1997-11-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.34
Price in other shops:
The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A Memoirby Daisy Bates
University of Arkansas Press; Published: 2007-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.40
Price in other shops:
Dear America: Letters Home from VietnamW. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2002-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.01
Price in other shops:
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Dover Thrift Editions)by Harriet Jacobs
Dover Publications; Published: 2001-11-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.29
Price in other shops:
Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schoolsby Jonathan Kozol
Published: 1992-08-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.88
Price in other shops:
Their Eyes Were Watching Godby Zora Neale Hurston
Published: 1998-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.14
Price in other shops:
Briar Roseby Jane Yolen
Tor Teen; Published: 2002-03-15; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.32
Price in other shops:
Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internmentby Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, James D. Houston
Bantam Books; Published: 1974-11-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops:
The House on Mango Streetby Sandra Cisneros
Vintage; Published: 1991-04-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.50
Price in other shops: