Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals
By Henry B., Bedford Hills, NY
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Can you imagine being one of nine black students chosen to integrate a school of over 2,000 white students? Warriors Don’t Cry is a compelling memoir of Melba Pattillo’s life during the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was a pioneer during that tortuous year.
In 1957, Little Rock was not an easy place for a black teenage girl to live. Pattillo had a rough start in life. She was born on December 7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor Day. A few weeks later she was on the verge of death because a white nurse refused to care for her. “The nightmare that surrounded my birth was proof positive that destiny had assigned me a special task,” she recounts.
When Pattillo volunteered to be one of the first black students to integrate the all-white high school, she hoped to show white students that blacks were their equals. But she didn’t know the battle that she would face.
On her first day, the mob surrounding the school was so large that she couldn’t find a way in. Some white men spotted her and tried to chase her down. Luckily, she escaped into a speeding car. Although Pattillo had been assigned a bodyguard, one day while walking in the hall, another student threw acid in her eyes. Had the bodyguard not been there to rinse her eyes with water, she would have gone blind.
Through this experience, Pattillo learned to have courage and patience. Her inspirational story is one-of-a-kind and opened my eyes to the extreme hardships that African-Americans have faced to get where they are today. Without warriors like Pattillo and the rest of the Little Rock Nine, segregation might still exist in America today. Now, because of the strength of these pioneers, an African-American is the front runner for this year’s presidential election.
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