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Melba Pattillo Beals Research Paper

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High Schools across the United States have students with different ethnicities and cultures. However, in the 1950’s the world was different and the thought of integration was perceived by many as an instrumental goal. There were white and black schools, parks, water fountains, restaurants, and communities. Melba Pattillo Beals was among one of the first African-American to change the landscape of integration in schools. In 1957, Beals and eight other African American students would change the color divider for generations to come, although with change comes sacrifice. The help of her family and the protection of the soldiers in the school from the animosity of her white classmates and the white community helped Beals endure the trials and tribulations …show more content…

After attempts of threatening to kill herself, her grandmother criticized her for letting the people who wanted her out of school “win” and she needed to tough it out and to wipe her tears. From her classmates teasing her, insulting her with names, and throwing objects at her, she could not figure out what to do until her grandmother suggested her to counterattack with reverse psychology and play mind games with her bullies. Her grandma suggested turning the negatives into positives in which she gave an example of the egg in her hair, “this egg in your hair, suppose you’d have told the boys thank you with a smile. How do you mean? What they want for you is to be unhappy. That’s how they get pleasure” (242). At first Beals was skeptical these mind games would work, but the next day was like any other day and when someone verbally insulted her, she responded back with kindness instead of hostility, for example, “I tried to open a door, two boys pushed it closed, I stood up straight and smiled thank you, you have done wonders for my arm muscles” (242). After seeing this tactic work with the two boys, she kept the mind games in her arsenal and used it whenever needed to better distance herself from bullies and attempt to suffer less damage. The purpose of this tactic Beals wanted to include was there is another way to confront someone without the use of violence. Her classmates pushed her to the ground, insulted her, and chased her to try to hurt her, but Beals knew if she retaliated with force she would be expelled even though her white classmates would not be punished for their actions, especially in 1957 where whites had the privilege to get away with criminal acts towards

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