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Warriors Don T Cry Analysis

Decent Essays

The years of the 1950’s and 1960’s were a time of pride for the American people. Great accomplishments occurred in those twenty years, including Neil Armstrong’s space landing, women’s roles in were changing with feminist movement, and there were government efforts to ease discrimination against minorities. But America was not perfect in every aspect. Discrimination and racism against minorities survived throughout the civil rights movement, although there were major efforts to stop it. One accomplishment, documented by Melba Pattillo Beals, was made in 1957 following the 1954 Supreme Court case that began desegregating schools. In her memoir, Warriors Don't Cry, Beals explains the horrifying year she endured while integrating a white school, …show more content…

Her life before her time in an integrated high school was fairly normal with a circle of friends, a crush on a boy named Vince, an appreciation for fashion, and a loving family. But Melba always noticed the differences between her African American family and the whites that lived in her town. She noticed how dark and dirty their bathroom or drinking fountain would be compared to those of whites, and she did not see the fairness of that even at a young age. When the opportunity to be the first black teenagers to integrate at a famously white school rises, she takes a risk and signs herself up. But when the news arrives that she was actually chosen to be the one of the nine students to enter the Little Rock High School, Melba’s normal life shattered into pieces. While she was constantly abused at school by her white peers, parents, and teachers, her friendships at home were falling apart. Her friends would no longer talk to her in fear that they would be targeted for a hate crime, and her social life was eaten up by integration duties like press conferences and extra schoolwork. Also, when her and the rest of the Little Rock Nine first entered the school, they …show more content…

But this is important to comprehend, because it gives a new perspective on the event. While most people may only know the Little Rock Nine as an event to integrate a white high school, Melba’s book describes the emotional impacts that it had. Throughout the year, Melba and the other black students became important pieces of the civil rights movement when they were only teenagers trying to receive an education. Melba’s work was influential in helping others understand an important event of the civil rights movement during the 1960’s, and the detrimental effects racism, discrimination, and bullying can be on a young child. But with her own experiences, Melba encourages people to realize that humans are all the same. Despite differences in race, religion, gender, or any other variation, everyone must respect and honor each other's differences if humanity wants to move on from its actions in the past. If white parents and students had realized Melba's lessons of resisting the existing conditions to see the change she wanted, then America and the 1960’s might have shifted into an extremely different

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