Warriors Don't Cry

58 pages • 1 hour read

Warriors Don't Cry

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | YA | Published in 1994

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Update-Chapters 6

Chapters 7-12

Chapters 13-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 7-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 7 Summary

On Monday, the Black students gather to enter Central High School for a second time. Their travel plans are better organized, and they make their way to one of the school’s side entrances. Later they find out that the hostile crowd across the street from Central became distracted by Black reporters and other journalists. The crowd attacked these journalists, accusing them of trying to divert the mob from the presence of the Black students.

The Little Rock Nine end up inside the school an hour after classes begin. As they walk through the halls, people hurl epithets at them. They go to the principal’s office, where the nine are broken up. Each receives a different homeroom class and an adult guide. On Melba’s way to class, a white woman accuses her and other Black students of wanting to marry white people. Melba thinks, “Why would I choose to marry one of those mean Little Rock white people” (74-75).

When she goes to her first class and sits down, all the white students move away from Melba. Her guide takes her to her second class, outdoor volleyball, where the other girls try to hit her with the ball. Melba sees three adult white mothers climbing over a fence so they can attack her. Her guide tells Melba to run. In the process, she falls and cuts her knee. A girl tries to kick her, and Melba twists the girl’s foot, causing her to fall backward. Melba manages to get inside the building and eventually makes it to her third-period class, shorthand. The teacher treats her respectfully and tells the other students they cannot move away from Melba.

Sitting in class, she hears waves of protest from the crowd gathered outside. Periodically, she can see people break through the police line and run toward the school. She learns later that some officers drop their badges and refuse to hold the crowd back. Administrators tell Melba and the other students to gather in the principal’s office at about 11:30 a.m. The administrators and police leaders decide they cannot hold the crowd back, so the Black students must go home. Some of the officers suggest surrendering one of the Black students to the white mob to save the lives of the other Blacks. The assistant police chief shoots this idea down as ridiculous. Police officers take the Black students to a loading dock, place them in two vehicles, and drive swiftly out as the crowd gathers around them.

Melba’s mother and grandmother tell her she does not have to return to school the next day, knowing she will face the mob again and mistreatment from white students. A reporter gets Melba on the phone and asks if she would be willing to tell her story in written form. Melba dictates a story about her first day of class, which appears on the AP wire the next morning. She tries to downplay the mistreatment she received and not describe all that happened, fearing that reporting the actual danger she experienced might end the effort to integrate.

Chapter 8 Summary

On Wednesday, two days after the first entrance into Central, someone knocks on the Pattillos’ front door. From inside the door, holding her shotgun, India asks who it is. The suited men outside are representatives of President Eisenhower. Eisenhower has called out the 101st Airborne Division in full force to enforce the judge’s order to integrate Central, and they have arrived in great numbers. The representatives tell Melba’s mother and grandmother that she can safely attend Central.

The students gather at the home of Mrs. C. Bates, Little Rock’s NAACP President. A caravan of Jeeps with machine guns escorts the station wagons carrying the Little Rock Nine to Central. As the students go through the front doors of the school, they see many soldiers with rifles and bayonets. These troops have secured the front of the school so that the students can enter safely. For the first time, the nine enter through the front door of the school.

Each Black student receives a soldier as a guard. Dan, a young soldier, introduces himself to Melba as her guard. He says he must wait outside in the hallway while she is in class. Although it is more muted, Melba continues to receive abuse from students. On one occasion when a group of male students knocks the books from her hand, Dan tells her to remain still. Instantly, a group of soldiers appears with nightsticks. The hooligans who attacked her call out insults but walk away.

When the day ends, she is tremendously relieved to go to Mrs. Bates’s house. Melba wants to go home and rest but must attend another news conference. Gathered by themselves, the nine discuss everything they have gone through. They share their stories to see whose experience is the most outrageous.

At the news conference, a Black reporter from the New York Post asks Melba if she would write an article about her experiences, which he guarantees to publish. She writes, “All the while I was talking to the reporter, I kept our instructions in mind: Accentuate the positive—don’t complain too much” (87). By nine p.m., exhausted, she is ready to go to sleep.

Chapter 9 Summary

On Thursday, Dan confides to Melba that he is only allowed to go with her as a guard and cannot fight on her behalf or interact with the other students. Confronted again by students who kick Melba in the shin and then kick her in the stomach, the best Dan can do is tell her to get up and move on.

The number of soldiers begins to decrease as the authorities try to decide how well the students can manage without the presence of the soldiers. On Friday, she finds that she and the other Black students must attend a pep rally with 2,000 white students. After the rally, when she gets up to leave, a group of football players forces her into a corner. One puts an arm against her throat so she cannot breathe and threatens her.

Dan finds her gathering her books, which the boys had knocked to the floor. He asks what she had done to protect herself, and she replies there was nothing she could do. Dan insists that authorities should have given her some training in self-defense since this is, after all, a war they are fighting. She confides in her diary that night that “after three full days inside Central, I know that integration is a much bigger word than I thought” (113).

Chapter 10 Summary

When Saturday arrives at the end of the first week, Melba wants nothing but rest. She sets her clock for four a.m. Saturday morning so she can get up and enjoy the silence with no reporters, no broadcast news, and nothing to distract her from relaxing and enjoying her life. She discovers that Vincent, her would-be boyfriend, has asked her to attend his church on Sunday, followed by lunch. They are to spend the afternoon together, then come to supper with her mother and grandmother at her house. Her mother and grandmother agree to this, which is her first date.

Lois and India take her shopping on Saturday for a store-bought dress, which thrills her. She is so excited about being with Vincent that, for a while, she puts everything about Central out of her mind. Unfortunately, as Sunday draws to a close, she cannot escape thoughts about Central.

On Monday, she discovers that the 101st Airborne have disappeared. Instead, National Guard troops are present, theoretically to provide support and security for the Black students. The guard takes no prohibitive measures, instead allowing the continual harassment of the Black students. This becomes such a fiasco that the next day, the 101st Airborne returns. Melba reunites with Dan. She hopes things will calm down, writing, “I told myself I could handle whatever the segregationists had in store for me. But I underestimated them” (118). They planned a large protest, hanging and burning a “straw figure” (121) representing a Black student.

Going alone to the restroom, she finds herself trapped in a bathroom stall with white girls holding the door closed while dropping burning pieces of paper onto her, trying to set her hair and clothes afire. She throws her books over the top of the stall, striking some of the white students, who run away, allowing her to escape.

As she walks down a hallway, a boy throws acid into her eyes, temporarily blinding her. Danny immediately douses her eyes with water. An optometrist says that his quick action has saved her vision. The doctor tells her to wear eye patches, but she doesn’t want the reporters to see them. Otherwise, she would have to explain what happened.

Chapter 11 Summary

Chapter 11 describes Melba’s experiences from the second week of October through Thanksgiving. This period sees a gradual drawdown of the 101st Airborne, so there’s less troop support. With fewer troops, the incidences of violence by the segregationist students increase.

A Norwegian reporter named Jorumn Rickets sets up a dialogue between two of the main vocal segregationist girls and three of the Black students. The conversation between them is candid and honest. As reported afterward, however, the segregationists demonstrate no insight into what the Black students are going through.

On another occasion, all the Black students and their parents accept an invitation to the office of Virgil Blossom, the Superintendent of Schools. He stresses how important it is for the Black students to maintain decorum and not let anybody know they are being harassed and physically assaulted. When Melba’s mother asks how the superintendent will protect the Black students, he replies that it is none of her business and then ignores her as she stands before him. It is clear to Melba that there is no plan to prevent the mistreatment of Black students.

Melba describes the impact of the daily attacks on the other Black students. Minnijean, one of the Black students, believes that if she can just stand up and sing in front of the white students, they will accept her and back off their hatred and anger. She tries to participate in the annual school assembly, but administrators trick her out of participating, which devastates her.

The Black students and their parents receive an invitation to the home of Mrs. Bates for a Thanksgiving meal that is also a press conference. Reporters pack the home. When Mrs. Bates asks one of the young people whether they like white or dark meat, Melba spontaneously answers that it is an “integrated turkey” (137). Though the comment irritates some of the adults, it causes laughter, and newspapers carry Melba’s quip. Segregationists taunt her with her joke repeatedly.

Melba receives an opportunity to speak in the Central High chapel service, one of the few places in the school where she found some peace of mind. She speaks on the nature of God and how God loves everyone, and she receives some positive feedback.

The general atmosphere of Central continues to disintegrate. The segregationists intend to wait for the 101st soldiers to leave to perpetrate greater violence toward the Black students. As the time approaches for the 101st to leave, Dan hints to Melba that he will depart. She weeps when Dan leaves, saying this is the first time she has ever wept for a white man. Melba expresses gratitude for all the soldiers of the 101st who had helped to protect the nine. As December approaches, Melba finds herself striving to stand up for herself and to fight back against the students who are so abusive. She looks forward desperately to the upcoming Christmas holiday.

Chapter 12 Summary

As Christmas approaches, so does Melba’s 16th birthday, an exciting milestone she has long awaited. Planning a party, she invites only one of her Central High friends, Minnijean, because she wants to be with her old friends from Horace Mann High School. She would like just to be one of the crowd and not stand out for a change. On the day of the party, only Vincent shows up. Her dearest girlfriend calls and reveals everyone is afraid to go to her house. Moreover, all her friends are attending a Christmas party that night to which Melba is not invited. Vincent also wants to go to the big Christmas party. She feels terribly hurt. Additionally, there is a car with two segregationists sitting outside her house, just waiting for her to go out by herself so they can attack her. These two stalkers are present night after night. Melba sends Vincent to the Christmas party and cries herself to sleep. She writes, “Integration had stolen my sixteenth birthday” (147).

As Christmas approaches, the National Guardsmen disappear, and there is no outside adult supervision of student behavior. The attacks experienced by the nine grow more intense. Melba notes that the segregationists have different assignments for harassing the nine students.

On the next the last day before Christmas vacation, as several Black students sit in the school cafeteria, Minnijean attempts to carry her tray with a bowl of chili to where her friends sit. She finds herself trapped by white students who intentionally try to trip her. Minnijean ends up spilling her chili, which lands on two segregationist boys. The segregationists rejoice because it means Minnijean will receive a suspension from Central. White students pick up a chant: One down and eight to go.

Chapters 7-12 Analysis

“Inside Central High” might be a suitable title for the second section of the narrative. Total, unpleasant surprise would describe the experience of Melba and the other members of the Little Rock Nine once they make their long-awaited entry into the school. Their integration into the school amplifies the theme of Persecution of the Innocent, which again takes both direct and indirect forms. As the nine wind their way through the cavernous, maze-like hallways to the principal’s office, they are accosted by unabashed students who rain down epithets and expletives on the silent group, setting the tone for the direct persecution that will continue throughout this section. Once inside the administration office, the principal introduces himself and quickly departs, reflecting the indirect persecution that comes from inaction or negligence. That interaction might symbolize exactly what the nine can expect from the school administrators: a fleeting, pointless presence that leaves the students to fend for themselves.

Whatever consolation the nine took from their togetherness quickly evaporated at the revelation that they all had different homerooms and class schedules. Thus, by intention, no Black student would ever have a class with another Black student. Melba reports that walking down the halls and in the classrooms, members of the nine were regularly violently attacked. In this section, Melba reports direct persecution from other students: being tripped, kicked in the shin and the stomach, seized and choked by football players, trapped in a restroom as burning pieces of paper fell upon her, nearly blown up by a lit stick of dynamite, and splashed in the eyes with acid.

This leads to consideration of the protection given to the students. On the first day, there was an angry mob outside the school, theoretically held back by Little Rock police officers. Because most officers sympathized with the hostile crowd, the police did little to prevent people from breeching the line and dashing across the street to the school. The official stance was that the police and administrators could not hold back the angry mob, implying that they, too, were Impotent in the Face of Prejudice. However, the truth is that local law enforcement and school administrators sympathized more with the mob than with the Little Rock Nine and the cause of integration. Once the police spirited the nine out through the school’s loading docks, the mob continued threatening an attack on the school. When administrators told the crowd the Black students had gone, the mob did not believe them. Three women from the crowd went inside and searched the school. Only then did the crowd believe the nine were gone.

Even Melba’s assigned soldier, Dan—who truly wants to protect her—finds himself impotent in the face of prejudice. He is not permitted to touch any of Melba’s attackers or talk to them: “I’m here for one thing […]. To keep you alive. I’m not allowed to get into verbal or physical battles with these students” (108). When Melba goes to the principal’s office to report a verbal and physical assault, a clerk asks if anyone saw the incident. She says the soldiers did, only to be told, “They don’t count. Because they can’t identify the people you’re accusing” (108). While there may be some truth to the soldiers’ inability to identify students by name, they likely could have identified other descriptors such as hair color, build, and clothing. The clerk’s statement is an excuse rather than a reason.

Perhaps from the piece Melba wrote for the news services that night, news of this chaos made its way to President Eisenhower, who responded by sending the 101st Airborne Division, legendary fighters, to secure the safety of Central and provide individual guards for each Black student. Assured of their safety, the nine returned to school on Wednesday, going through the front doors for the first time. The issue with this arrangement was the continued attempt to draw down the number of troops or remove the 101st completely. Only a few days into this new arrangement, the troops disappeared, resulting in another day of chaos and, thus, the immediate return of the troops. The prompt return of the 101st implies that some higher authorities knew about the extreme mistreatment of the Black students. Yet, when asked what his plan was to protect the Black students, the school superintendent responded it was none of Lois’s business. Before Christmas, the pared-down 101st troops quietly disappeared completely, leaving Black students at the mercy of segregationists who had patiently waited for this eventuality.

In this section, Melba notes the increasing sophistication used by segregationists in their attacks on the nine. In the third section, she reveals that an adult-led group meets weekly to plan their harassment tactics. She shares the rumor that a mental-health professional assists the group in enhancing their attacks. That might explain the addition of psychological attacks on the students, such as burning a straw figure to represent the desired fate of the Black students. Such intimidation techniques were long-favored by segregationists and white supremacists in their persecution of the innocent.

In this section, Melba also questions whether she has the capacity to continue receiving the abuse she endures. She and the other Black students, who are together frequently, engage in gallows humor, each trying to outdo one another in sharing the worst abuse they have experienced in a given day. Some of the nine hope for a breakthrough, such that the white students will stop persecuting them. Minnijean clings to the thought that if she can sing before the assembled students, they will cease their hateful behavior. Melba marvels at the apparent reality that simply being brown has resulted in all these individuals hating her.

As grievously as Melba feels about Central and the suffering she endures, it is also in this section that readers see further development of the theme of The Creation of a Warrior. Elements of her transition appear in her willingness and ability to pen articles for the news services—as she becomes a warrior of words—that state what happens in Central without describing the horrific abuse received by the nine. Her relationship with Dan prepares her to deal with hostile, segregationist students, such that she gains confidence in countering and parrying many of the assaults that come at her. Like India, Dan views Melba as a warrior, saying, “It takes a warrior to fight a battle and survive. This here is a battle if I’ve ever seen one” (113). She expresses herself cleverly, if sometimes to the dismay of others. For example, when Mrs. Bates asks a student at the Thanksgiving meal if they want light or dark meat, Melba quips that the turkey is integrated. The remark is so clever that wire services pick it up. So do segregationists. Because she is so frequently in the news, Melba’s personal habits come to be known and exploited by the segregationists.

Part of her honing as a warrior, unfortunately, means she must also endure pain, defeat, and disappointment. Melba experiences these in full measure in the second section. She weeps over the loss of Dan, who was a protector and someone she trusted and who inspired her. She also mourns the loss of friends who have grown afraid to come to her home, and she makes the sacrifice of telling Vincent he should leave her house and go to the Christmas party without her. Readers may observe that an emotionally resilient, well-balanced, maturing Melba begins to emerge in this section.