Warriors Don't Cry (Page 1 - 45)

Title: Warriors Don't Cry
Author: Melba Pattillo Beals
Pages: 1-45
Chapters: 1-4

SUMMARY:
The searing memoir Warriors Don't Cry follows through the eye of protagonist Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the Little Rock 9 students. For the first four chapters, the setting varies due to the author’s great use of flashbacks and description of different events. It is mostly around 1954-1957 when segregation was still active. This memoir is told in dual-narrative voice from a younger Melba Beals' viewpoint and an adult Ms. Beals' viewpoint. While other teenagers were enjoying and listening to the current music, Melba was evading the slashes of lynch mobs. At the time of segregation, Melba and eight other black students were chosen to attend Little Rock's Central High School, a high school where only rich white kids go. Those students came to be known as the "Little Rock 9". Their security was their main priority because all the other students tried to harm them and the white student's parents' didn't like the idea of their kids attending to high school with the black students. The Government’s most elite 101st Airborne Division who were known for being Korean War heroes protected the Little Rock 9. The 101st Airborne Division sacrificed their life to body guard the Little Rock 9 and escort them to school. As a 3 year old, Melba isn't aware of the term "colored" but she is afraid of white people as she heard about them when elderly people converse. Some of her relatives are fair skin and she is also scared of them. Places. She is not aware of the signs that describe "colored" people and "whites" only. She begins to realize white people are in charge and people of color don't have the power to do anything, which is why they have dusty restrooms and water-fountains. She experiences her first test of segregation at the age of 5 when she escapes a family picnic to ride the merry-go-round but the conductor yells at her telling that there's no place for her even though there is an empty saddle and as she looks around she sees faces that indicate her of doing something wrong so she flees crying. The house that Melba and her family live in is described using strong imagery. They are middle-class family just because her mother is a teacher. Her mother and dad are divorced and her grand mother is her greatest advocate who tells her to believe in God. Brown v. Board of Education is a huge part of the story because it strikes the story when Melba was in school at a young age. She isn't aware of it because she doesn't know it in detail. Due to Brown v. Board of Education. Melba is chased by a tall white man who almost rapes her but is stopped by her friend Marissa. There's a dramatic irony because Melba doesn't know what the word rape means as Marissa explains what had happened to Melba's grandmother. She washes her body and prays to the lord in order to be pure. Melba decides to sign up for Central High School but doesn't inform her family about it.

QUOTATION:
"It transformed us into warriors who dared not cry even when we suffered intolerable pain. I became an instant adult, forced to take stock of what I believed and what I was willing to sacrifice to back up my beliefs" (Beals 2).

REACTION:
This quote is very powerful. As I was reading the memoir, Ms. Beals uses dual-narrative voice to give a viewpoint of both younger and adult version of her. This quote is a combination of both versions because the young Melba Beals has just became an adult by suffering intolerable pains and harassment by the students of Central High. When Melba was a child, she was told by her grandmother to have patience. Her grandmother also told her that God had blessed her with good brains and health. As she transformed into adult through her will power, this creates a connection to a "coming of age theme" in our ELA 10 class. Melba also raised a statement that sparked in my brain. She believed that black folks aren't born expecting segregation, prepared from day one to follow its confining rules. Segregation was daunting and it was what made other students harm the Little Rock 9. Even though it was extreme hatred and pain, they bore within themsleves and became warriors!