Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High [Paperback]

Melba Pattillo Beals (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 1, 1995

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 of Education, Melba was one of nine teenagers chosen to integrate Little Rock's Central High School.

Throughout her harrowing ordeal, Melba was taunted by her schoolmates and their parents, threatened by a lynch mob's rope, attacked with lighted sticks of dynamite, and injured by acid sprayed in her eyes. But through it all, she acted with dignity and courage, and refused to back down.

This is her remarkable story.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The author forcefully recalls how, at age 15, she and several other black teenagers were chosen to integrate Little Rock's Central High following the passage of Brown v. Board of Education.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up-Beals, one of the nine black students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, AR, in 1957, tells an incredible story of faith, family love, friendships, and strong personal commitment. Drawing from the diaries she kept, the author easily puts readers in her saddle oxfords as she struggles against those people in both the white and black communities who would have segregation continue. Her prose does not play on the sympathy of readers; it simply tells it like it happened. She shares the physical, mental, and emotional torture and abuse she suffered at the hands of teenagers and adults. She also shares the support, the encouragement, and the help she received from both whites and blacks. While the book's length may discourage younger readers, those who begin it will find the reading easy and fast. This abridgement of the author's 1994 adult title of the same name is fascinating as well as enlightening and honest.
Valerie Childress, J.W. Holloway Middle School, Whitehouse, TX
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671866397
• ISBN-13: 978-0671866396
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (132 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

After earning a Bachelor's Degree from San Francisco State University and a graduate degree from Columbia University's School of Journalism, Melba Beals worked as a reporter for NBC-TV. At present she is a communications consultant in San Francisco and is the author of books on public relations and marketing.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for teaching October 27, 2004

By M. Adams

Format:School & Library Binding

This is an excellent book about the Little Rock 9 told by one of the students.

The details are excellent and it gives a REAL account of the torture the students went through, and the depths to which people can sink and how terribly they treat each other.

I was glad to see an account of one of the MAJOR events in the American Civil Rights struggle which did not play down what happened, nor sugar coat it. People need to know what happened, and what it was like for the participants. This book will tell them.

I highly recommend this book.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling voice... June 12, 2001

By Susan Keller

Format:Paperback

This is an amazing book, compellingly narrated through Beals' diaries from her youth. Her first-person experience of one of the highly-charged, ugly parts of American history opened my eyes to the reality of and struggle against racism that exists even to today. I was horrified and humbled that events such as those experienced by Beals happened within relatively recent history. I fell in love with Beals' grandma - a woman of true wisdom, integrity, and encouragement. My hat off to Melba Patillo Beals for an amazing, compelling narration of our history. Thank you for helping me see through the eyes of a strong and struggling child walking into the face/voice/fist of hatred.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars LIKE BEING THERE February 20, 2001

By Mary Allen

Format:Paperback

This work is perfectly sequenced and thoroughly documented, mainly because the author kept a detailed diary during this period. Years later, her diary, plus archived news reports and a great writing style combined to produce this searing expose. It is the story of the 1957-1958 integration attempt at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, as seen through the eyes of a participant, one of the Little Rock Nine, Melba Patttilo Beals.

In WARRIORS DON'T CRY, it's heartwrenching to read of the actual daily brutality and torture of kicks, slaps , spitting, sprays and verbal abuse that these children suffered. The events that occurred at this timne made an unerasable mark of violent racist psyche on the multi-colored design that composes America's people. This book is also emotional because it is easy to see that those in power could have made the transition to integration a much smoother and less painful step into an inevitably better social structure.

This was a hard read. I had to put it down several times because the visualization was just too intense, the bigotry and viciousness too unadulterated. Yet, I think it's something every American needs to read so that the actions contained in this book will never be repeated.