A warrior is defined as a brave or experienced soldier or fighter. The story, Warriors Don’t Cry, written by Melba Pattillo Beals, is a memoir about how she battled to integrate high school in Little Rock, Arkansas as a young black girl. Melba has emerged with courage, faith, hope, and strength to help shape black people's civil rights. Melba was a warrior during the integration of black people due to her physical and mental strength against the people who disagreed that blacks should have the same rights as whites, and her courage to fight for the freedom of the black population within the United States during the Civil Rights Movement in 1957. Melba represents a warrior due to the battles that she has been through to have a sense of freedom …show more content…
Melba tells a story from when she was eight years old and shopping in stores downtown when she had to use the bathroom. She decided to use a white public restroom instead of going in her pants. She endured the fear and verbal abuse of being judged and harassed by white ladies for using their bathroom, calling her horrible names and calling the police on her for using a white-only bathroom. Melba was a warrior for escaping a grown, white man who was trying to lure her into his car with candy and offering her a ride home to rape her as a form of a white man getting control over a young black girl to show that she will never be able to control the United States as a person of color. In the book he says, “‘I’ll show you n*ggers the Supreme Court can’t run my life,’ he said as his hand ripped at my underpants. A voice inside my head told me I was going to die, that there was nothing I could do about it. White men were in charge” (26). This quote shows that Melba was under a white male’s authority and fought him because she did not want to be controlled and have her body taken over by a white
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
In Warriors Don’t Cry I think Melba is a very strong Warrior. I say this because she could have not went to Central High and she could have backed out of it instead of going to all the trouble. Melba knew a lot of white people were going to disagree with integration, especially the kids at school. She knew they were going try to do anything to get rid of her and her friends. But she was prepared and ready for the kids who might or may taunt her and call her bad names and she knew if she prayed every night and asked God to keep her safe and be by her side so that she could get through this year and graduate. But when she went to Central High School, she knew that fighting with the other white people would not solve anything but she knew her
During the 1950s, African Americans struggled against racial segregation, trying to break down the race barrier. Fifteen year old Melba Patillo Beals was an ordinary girl, until she’s chosen with eight other students to integrate Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. They are named the Little Rock and fight through the school year, while students and segregationists are threatening and harassing them. Warriors Don’t Cry—a memoir of Beals’ personal experience—should be taught in schools because it teaches students to treat each other equally and to be brave, while it also shows the struggle of being an African-American in the 1950s. Another lesson taught in the retelling is that everyone can make a change.
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.
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.
In the memoir Warriors Don’t Cry Melba Pattillo Beals illustrates the characteristics of a warrior that are required to fight for social change. Melba has to deal with continuous hatred from whites and blacks, and these unfortunate events morph her into a faithful and courageous warrior.
In conclusion, Warriors Don 't Cry shows how fear can turn to bravery. Nowadays, it can still be relevant. The present isn 't as bad as Beals 's past. However, around the world, there is still racism. If people read the memoir, it could change their minds. After all, skin color doesn 't really matter. We all have the rights that everyone else has. Skin color doesn 't matter because what defines us is who we are
Beals made history When the Governor of the State didn’t let the Blacks into the High School so the President sent the Soldier of the 101st to the state to escort them through the mob of Angry Whites. During this people shouted ugly words,, raised their fist to the Blacks, and Looked horrified of the Blacks while Beals and the Other Little Rock nine were getting escorted through the Town to the School. Beals said ‘’Some of the White people looked horrified, While others raised their fist, others shouted ugly Words,’’ Beals reaction to this is she felt sad and proud she felt proud that the country would do all of this to escort them to the school but Beals was sad that they had to go to such great lengths. Beals said that ‘’She was proud that I lived in a country that would go this far to bring justice to a little tock Girl like me but sad that they had to go to such great lengths.’’ Then the Soldiers of the 101st made a protective cocoon, and escorted them through the mob of Whites that did not want the blacks to be in there society. How this event affected the society is when Beals went to school with other Whites she broke a little more of the Color Barrier. To Conclude Melba Beals changed the mind of some of the Whites, and break the color
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
A warrior is a hero, a role-model, fearless, loyal, persevering, brave – there are few that are able to fulfill these standards. Yet Melba Beals, a fifteen year old girl, not only claims this illusive role, but cannot escape it. Through the journey into integration, Melba acts as a dynamic juxtaposition, moving from a scared little girl to a fierce soldier, yet never truly satisfied with her position. This conflict arises from her personal, family, and religious values, the impact of integration in Little Rock, and her experiences during her time at Central High. The title Warriors Don't Cry is employed as a command as well as a way of life and later a regret as this memoir progresses.
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.
In both instances, innocent people are harmed and abused without proper cause. Another inference to be made details that in each situation both Doro and the white men are referenced as the “enemies” of the text and maintained the attitude that they are capable and therefore permitted to treat people how they wish. As presented in many fictional texts such as Kindred, Wild Seed and The Appropriation of a Culture, “control” or “power” can be deemed the underlying influence to the concept of oppression and unjust treatment of others due to their race or social status. These fictional texts graphically detail the experiences of African Americans and how they came together as a community when facing the inevitable both in slavery and during the Jim Crow era. There are many other texts that describe the improper regulation of control and what can happen when one race or group has too much.
We all are Gods creation, and no doubt He made us better than we think we are, everyone is equal and everyone has great qualities inside them and this leads to the second point which is about equality. Equality means that everyone in the society is treated similarly, no matter what race they belong to, but after reading this emotion-filled poem, it is declared that the native people are not treated equally. Mercredi states “my red face hurts as I watch a white man hiding his white sheet beneath his suit and tie condemn me because of one man's greed sentencing me to an early death my red face hurts as he smiles (Mercredi: 13-18)” The poet exemplifies that how the white people have more privileges and rights in the country, they have more power because of their color and due to this overwhelmed power they possess, they are extremely greedy. The white people treat the natives like slaves and make them work like animals until their life is close to an end. After this convoluted torture, they still are smiling. The white people have a heart like a stone because they have committed so many injustices that they can’t redeem their
The narrator is not the only black male in the story to have experience the racism with the white men. The narrator tries to get away from the racism but struggles to, he come across multiple African Americans that attempt to do the same thing. All of these provide an idea to the correct way to be black in America and it also demonstrates how blacks should act. It is said that anyone who doesn’t follow these correct ways are betraying the race. In the beginning of the story, the narrator’s grandfather says that the only way to make racism become extinct that African Americans should be overly nice to whites. The Exhorter named Ras had different beliefs of the blacks rising up to the whites and take power from the whites. Even though these thoughts come from the black community to take the freedom from the whites, the stories reveals that the are just as dangerous as the whites being racist. The narrator has such a hard time throughout the whole story exploring his identity. While doing so, it demonstrates how so many blacks are betraying their race because the have such a hard time dealing with it. In the end of the story once the battle was over the boys are brought to get their payment. That is when the narrator is able to present his speech to everyone. He was completely beat up and bruised and blood coming from his mouth and nose when he begins his speech. All the other men are laughing and yelling at him,
We remember Mrs. Lithebe's words, "For what else are we born?" and we see that there are some white men who do care. We also learn of James Jarvis's suffering and fear.