Racism In Warriors Don T Cry By Melba Pattillo Beals

797 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Explanation to the ways of meeting oppression

Racism is an attribute that has often plagued all of American society’s existence. Whether it be the earliest examples of slavery that occurred in America, or the cases of racism that happens today, it has always been a problem. However, this does not mean that people’s overall opinions on racial topics have always stayed the same as prior years. This is especially notable in the 1994 memoir Warriors Don’t Cry. The memoir occurred in 1957 Little Rock, Arkansas and discusses the Melba Pattillo Beals attempt to integrate after the Brown vs. Board of Education court case. Finally, in Warriors Don’t Cry, Melba Pattillo Beals discusses the idea that freedom is achievable through conflicts involving her family, school life, and friends. The aspect that affected her the most often would be the conflicts that occurred to her family throughout the story, which she would realize that freedom …show more content…

One of the earliest events that happened to Melba was the attack that happened in the bathroom. The event occurred near the start of her time in Central, when a group of boys attacked her and she had to be protected by Danny, and when she brought this up to the school board they pushed her away by stating “Well in order to do anything, we need an adult witness.” (Beals pg 108-109) This showed her that the school had no interest in protecting her, which made her start to stand up to protect herself. The second important event that occurred was when Danny left after a month of protecting her, which made her think “Warriors keep moving, they don't stop to lick their wounds and cry.” (Beals pg 128) This was an event that pushed Melba to overcome the problems that were occurring to her, and gave her, her first hero. All of the events that happened to Melba made her be able to stand up for her freedom in times where she was at her

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Warriors Don T Cry

    272 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the book Warriors Don't Cry, Melba has a very strong support system. Her mother, and her grandmother are very big supporters in this book. In the segregated south, white people had power and black people didn't. These nine black student that entered an all white school had very many people discourage them. Whites talked about them, looked at them, and made fun of them. Melba was one out of the nine black students that attended Central High school, but since she had a very supportive family, she didn't let anyone get to her. With this and many other acts, integration such as Melba showed that the white segregationist was a fragile illusion. Melba's story makes clear that the power of whites lie, to some extent, in the consent of the black

    Read More

  • Summary Of Anne Moody's Coming Of Age In Mississippi And The Naapi

    1350 Words  | 3 Pages

    The forties and fifties in the United States was a period dominated by racial segregation and racism. The declaration of independence clearly stated, “All men are created equal,” which should be the fundamental belief of every citizen. America is the land of equal opportunity for every citizen to succeed and prosper through determination, hard-work and initiative. However, black citizens soon found lack of truth in these statements. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the murder of Emmett Till in 1955 rapidly captured national headlines of civil rights movement. In the book, Coming of Age in Mississippi, the author, Anne Moody describes her experiences, her thoughts, and the movements that formed her life. The events she went through prepared her to fight for the civil right.

    Read More

  • Warriors Don T Cry By Melba Pattillo Beals

    617 Words  | 2 Pages

    Melba Pattillo Beals book, Warriors Don’t Cry, is a memoir about her experience as one of the Little Rock Nine. From a very young age Melba sees the many problems with segregation. Throughout the book she recalls several memories involving the unfairness and struggles that her, her family, and other African Americans had to go through in the South during the time of segregation and the Civil Rights Movement.

    Read More

  • Stories of Scottsboro by James E. Goodman

    798 Words  | 2 Pages

    Currently in the United States of America, there is a wave a patriotism sweeping across this great land: a feeling of pride in being an American and in being able to call this nation home. The United States is the land of the free and the home of the brave; however, for the African-American citizens of the United States, from the inception of this country to midway through the twentieth century, there was no such thing as freedom, especially in the Deep South. Nowhere is that more evident than in Stories of Scottsboro, an account of the Scottsboro trials of 1931-1937, where nine African-American teenage boys were falsely accused of raping two white girls in Scottsboro, Alabama and no matter how much proof was brought forth proving there innocence, they were always guilty. This was a period of racism and bigotry in our country that is deeply and vividly portrayed though different points of view through author James E. Goodman.

    Read More

  • Melba Pattillo Beals', Warriors Don't Cry

    2530 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the book Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals, the author describes what her reactions and feelings are to the racial hatred and discrimination she and eight other African-American teenagers received in Little Rock, Arkansas during the desegregation period in 1957. She tells the story of the nine students from the time she turned sixteen years old and began keeping a diary until her final days at Central High School in Little Rock. The story begins by Melba talking about the anger, hatred, and sadness that is brought up upon her first return to Central High for a reunion with her eight other classmates. As she walks through the halls and rooms of the old school, she recalls the horrible acts of violence that were committed by the white students against her and her friends.

    Read More

  • White Supremacism In Battle Royal, By Ralph Ellison

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal” is an eye opening story. Ellison introduces us to a black nameless citizen. All the nameless citizen wants is to be acknowledged and to please the white men, which is strange given the white common men are forcing him to brutally fight his black peers. Ellison’s story is focusing on the ignorance of African Americans due to the constant deception of the white supremacist. (Ellison)

    Read More

  • Why I Quit The Klan By Claiborne Ellis

    1209 Words  | 3 Pages

    Conflicted Often, people go through changes in their lives based on experiences. Former KKK member, Claiborne Ellis would be one of those people whose experiences changed his mentality. Certainly, having conflicted ideas about other races, is a challenge in itself. So, after reading Why I quit the Klan, I could not imagine a racist honestly changing his view on his personal feelings on other races.

    Read More

  • Discrimination In Warriors Don T Cry By Melba

    1036 Words  | 3 Pages

    Warriors don’t cry is a story of the Little Rock Nine who went to Central High School; an all-white school with hopes to integrate blacks and whites into non segregated schools. The story mainly follows a girl named Melba and what her life was like at the time of going to this school and making a stepping stone into desegregation. However this took place in a time and place where white people were still being very racist towards black people. Some say sending a girl into a school like this is child abuse because these kids suffered death threats, being physically abused, and slandered against. There is also the people that believe this was the right thing to do even if a child like Melba’s life was at risk. It was not child abuse to send Melba

    Read More

  • Brown v. Board of Education Decision

    2171 Words  | 5 Pages

    "Histories, like ancient ruins, are the fictions of empires. While everything forgotten hands in dark dreams of the past, ever threatening to return...”, a quote from the movie Velvet Goldmine, expresses the thoughts that many supporters of integration may have felt because no one truly knew the effects that one major verdict could create. The Brown v. Board of Education decision was a very important watershed during the Civil Rights Movement. However, like most progressive decisions, it did not create an effective solution because no time limit was ever given. James Baldwin realized that this major oversight would lead to a “broken promise.”

    Read More

  • Is Racism in the Heart? by Tommie Shelby

    1353 Words  | 3 Pages

    Racism is not a factor of the heart, according to Tommie Shelby in “Is Racism in the ‘Heart’?” He writes “the ‘heart’ does not have to be involved in order for an action or institution to be racist” (483). Instead, Shelby argues that racism is based on the effect of a person’s actions on deepening racist institutions or promulgating the oppression of a particular group of people based on their race. The individual intention of a person or the “purity” or his or her heart does not take precedence over the effect of his or her actions. Shelby’s argument is constructed as follows: Individual beliefs can be true or false but not inherently immoral. Therefore, it is not appropriate to morally condemn someone for holding a particular belief. However, when the particular belief leads to “race-based hatred...actions...or institutions” that is when it becomes appropriate to hold the individual with the belief morally culpable for racism.

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of W. E. B. Du Bois And James Baldwin

    727 Words  | 2 Pages

    From slavery being legal, to its abolishment and the Civil Rights Movement, to where we are now in today’s integrated society, it would seem only obvious that this country has made big steps in the adoption of African Americans into American society. However, writers W.E.B. Du Bois and James Baldwin who have lived and documented in between this timeline of events bringing different perspectives to the surface. Du Bois first introduced an idea that Baldwin would later expand, but both authors’ works provide insight to the underlying problem: even though the law has made African Americans equal, the people still have not.

    Read More

  • Warriors Don't Cry

    1040 Words  | 3 Pages

    Melba managed to survive her days at Central High School and wrote about her extraordinary "battles" and experiences in her autobiography, Warriors Don't Cry. Melba began her story with her childhood in Little Rock, Arkansas. She lived with her mother, grandma, and brother in a strict and religious household. Her family had come to accept the fact that they would always be mistreated because of their color. In the South, this mistreatment of blacks was seen as perfectly normal, but Melba saw things a little differently.

    Read More

  • Simple Justice

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Simple Justice” was written by Richard Kluger and reviews the history of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation, and African America’s century-long struggle for equality under law. It began with the inequities of slavery to freedom bells to the forcing of integration in schools and the roots of laws with affect on African Americans. This story reveals the hate caused the disparagement of African Americans in America over three hundred years. I learned how African Americans were ultimately acknowledged by their simple justice. The American version of the holocaust was presented in the story. In 1954 the different between how segregation and slavery were not in fashion when compared with dishonesty of how educating African American are separate from Caucasian was justified by the various branches of government.

    Read More

  • The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

    1330 Words  | 3 Pages

    As Elie Wiesel once stated, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” (“Elie Wiesel Quote”). Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow, which discusses criminal justice and its role in mass incarceration, promotes a similar idea regarding silence when America’s racial caste system needs to be ended; however, Alexander promotes times when silence would actually be better for “the tormented.” The role of silence and lack of silence in the criminal justice system both contribute to wrongly accused individuals and growing populations behind bars.

    Read More

  • Reflection Of The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander

    793 Words  | 2 Pages

    Reading my first book for this class, I was really looking forward to it. The book, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, is an interesting book because it touches base on mass incarceration and the caste system. Figuring out that society is on a war on drugs and racism in the justice system is upsetting, and yet interesting. Michelle does a really nice job in organizing the book and presenting the plot. The fact that this book informs and explains arguments, what is happening with the justices system is complete true. Our lives would look complete different; and some of her points are happening. People do not realize getting incarcerated will take some of rights away. This essay will reflect on the book its self, answer questions,

    Read More

More about Racism In Warriors Don T Cry By Melba Pattillo Beals

Open Document