Warriors Don't Cry
Ratings1
Average rating5
15
Ratings1
Average rating5
The landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, *Brown v. Board of Education*, brought the promise of integration to Little Rock, Arkansas, but it was hard-won for the nine black teenagers chosen to integrate Central High School in 1957. They ran a gauntlet flanked by a rampaging mob and a heavily armed Arkansas National Guard--opposition so intense that soldiers from the elite 101st Airborne Division were called in to restore order. For Melba Beals and her eight friend those steps marked their transformation into reluctant warriors--on a battlefield that helped shape the civil rights movement.
*Warriors Don't Cry*, drawn from Melba Beals's personal diaries, is a riveting true account of her junior year at Central High--one filled with telephone threats, brigades of attacking mothers, rogue police, fireball and acid-throwing attacks, economic blackmail, and, finally, a price upon Melba's head. With the help of her English-teacher mother; her eight fellow warriors; and her gun-toting, Bible-and-Shakespeare-living grandmother, Melba survived. "Dignity," said Grandmother India, "is a state of mind, just like freedom." And incredibly, from a year that would hold no sweet-sixteen parties or school plays, Melba Beals emerged with indestructible faith, courage, strength, and hope. --Publisher
Reviews with the most likes.
As a story, I think everyone should read this book.
The writing might not be most engaging, but the story most certainly is.
It is also very hard to read. I find it hard to accept how awful, cruel, and inhumane humans can be to each other. I said I would have thought the events were too horrible to be credible, had I read them in a novel. I don't understand the racism. I mean, if you saw black people as animals, you'd treat them as animals, but these people treat their black fellow humans worse than any animals. Which to me means that they KNOW black people are people.
I am glad for the ending, and also glad for the power of faith.
