Warriors Don

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Warriors Dont Cry Whirligigs

• Summer Reading Books of Choice
• Mrs. Cole
• OMMS

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Warriors Dont Cry

• by Melba Patillo Beals

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About the novel

• Genre non-fiction, biography
• Setting 1950s, Little Rock, Arkansas
• Brown v. Board of Education states that separate
  but equal is inherently unequal, granting 9
  African-American students admission to an all
  white school, Central High.

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About the author

• Melba Patillo Beals was born on December 7, 1941,
  in Little Rock, Arkansas
• At the time that Beals was born, black and white
  people in many parts of America (especially the
  southern states) lived in a legally segregated
  society.
• Though they were better off than many other
  blacks in Arkansas, they were still subject to
  the same injustices as the rest of their
  community.

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About the author

• Aside from her parents, the strongest influence
  in Beals's life was her grandma, India. India was
  deeply religious, and she taught Beals to look to
  the Bible for guidance. She also taught Beals to
  rely on God for strength, a lesson that would
  help her later when she became one of the first
  black students to enter Little Rock's all-white
  high school in the fall of 1957.

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• In 1954, when Beals was twelve, the Supreme Court
  made a momentous decision in the lawsuit Brown v.
  the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
• Attorney Thurgood Marshall argued that
  segregation, the idea validated by the separate
  but equal finding in Plessy vs. Ferguson, was a
  violation of the 14th Amendment to the
  Constitution.
• The 14th Amendment, passed after the abolition of
  slavery, stated that all citizens of the United
  States were guaranteed the same rights, including
  the same rights to public education and
  protection under the law.

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• The Supreme Court found that segregation was
  indeed unconstitutional, and civil rights
  activists began to work toward integration and
  equal rights for white and black people. Their
  largest battle was the effort to integrate the
  schools in southern communities.
• Three years later, in Little Rock, Arkansas, nine
  black students were sent to the all-white Central
  High School to force integration. This group was
  known as the Little Rock Nine, and Beals was one
  of them.

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• Beals spent one terrible year at Central High
  School, facing death threats, violence, and
  hatred.
• The governor of Arkansas at the time, Orval
  Faubus, sent troops to prevent the Little Rock
  Nine from entering the school. President
  Eisenhower decreed that Faubus was defying
  federal law and sent federal troops down to force
  the integration. Their battle continued
  throughout the school year.
• The next year, Faubus shut down the Little Rock
  schools so that he would not have to allow
  desegregation, and Beals was eventually sent to
  live with a family of white Quakers in
  California.

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About the novel

• Point of view  The book is the story of Melba's
  teenage life, and the adult writer, Melba, is
  both the narrator and the protagonist. Melba
  tells the story from the first person point of
  view.

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Themes

• The shift of power due to resistance and
  opposition
• Remember, there is passive resistance and there
  is active resistance. Grandma India teaches
  passive, like Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm X
  taught active resistance.
• The prominence of race relations in society
• Reality turns children into adults

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Symbols

• Central High School There is irony in the fact
  that an institution of education tries to promote
  or condone ignorance by denying African-Americans
  admission. Its exterior is also described as
  prison-like, and it becomes a prison for Melba
  and her friends.

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Symbols

• Melba's Easter Dress the tradition of making
  the dress each year accentuates the pride that
  Melba's family takes in their clothing, their
  religion, and their lives. But in this particular
  year, Melba insists on an adult dress made of
  adult fabric. The dress symbolizes Melba's
  difficult passage from a high-school girl to an
  adult warrior for justice and is a reward for her
  work.