Warriors Don T Cry Sparknotes

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Gabriela Mendoza-Hudson Reed HIST 314 26 February 2016 Word Count: Warriors Don’t Cry: Book Review Warriors Don’t Cry is a memoir of Melba Patillo Beals’s personal accounts of her junior year at Little Rock Central High during the years of integration. The 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education, brought on integration in Little Rock, Arkansas. However, it was a victory for the nine African American teenagers chosen to integrate Central High School in 1957. These individuals endured angry mobs of segregationists, armed guards, physical attacks and death threats which shaped Melba and her eight friends to transform into reluctant warriors on a battlefield, fighting for their rights for a better education and freedom. Additionally, …show more content…

One example of her earliest memories is the day she and her family went to Fair Park for a Fourth of July picnic. She snuck away to the merry-go-round, hoping to spend the money she saved up to ride on it. However, much to her dismay, the concessionaire yelled at her, saying there was no space for her. This caused her to become frightened and embarrassed, so much so that she ran away. “Scurrying past the people waiting in line, I was so terrified that I didn’t even take the time to pick up my precious pennies. At five I learned that there was to be no space for me on that merry-go-round no matter how many saddles stood empty.” (Beals, 8) This was a life-changing event in Melba’s life because this was a moment of clarification for her at a young age. It was the first moment in her life where she realized her place in the racist Southern society she lived in. She felt ashamed of herself, because she knew because of the color of her skin, she would never be treated as well as white people. However, Melba would always remember that day, and use it as motivation to fight for …show more content…

She was fascinated at how well they listened to her, and felt like she was important. This was a moment where she believed that equality between white and colored people could be possible after all. “Today is the first time in my life I felt equal to white people. I want more of that feeling. I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep feeling equal all the time.” (Beals, 90) This was the moment she realized her voice and her opinions mattered, and she was willing to do anything in her power to achieve freedom and equality for all, even if it meant sacrificing the activities she loved doing and the people she liked to be around before she agreed to integrate Central High. “I apologize, God, for thinking you had taken away all my normal life. Maybe you’re just exchanging it for a new life.” (Beals,

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