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

In this essential autobiographical account by one of the Civil Rights Movement's most powerful figures, Melba Pattillo Beals of the Little Rock Nine explores not only the oppressive force of racism, but the ability of young people to change ideas of race and identity.

In 1957, well before Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, Melba Pattillo Beals and eight other teenagers became iconic symbols for the Civil Rights Movement and the dismantling of Jim Crow in the American South as they integrated Little Rock's Central High School in the wake of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education.

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.

Warriors Don't Cry is, at times, a difficult but necessary reminder of the valuable lessons we can learn from our nation's past. It is a story of courage and the bravery of a handful of young, black students who used their voices to influence change during a turbulent time.

Author: Melba Pattillo Beals
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Published: 02/01/1995
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.66lbs
Size: 8.36h x 5.34w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780671866396
Age Range: 12-17

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 6.5
Point Value: 9
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 18436 / Warriors Don't Cry (Abridged)

Award: Robert F. Kennedy Book Award - Honor Book

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 01/02/1995
Publishers Weekly 08/18/1997

About the Author
Melba Pattillo Beals is a journalist and member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who were the first to integrate Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas.