logo
SuperSummary Logo
Study Guide

Warriors Don't Cry

Melba Pattillo Beals
Guide cover image

58 pages • 1 hour read

Melba Pattillo Beals

Warriors Don't Cry

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | YA | Published in 1994

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Further Reading & Resources

Further Reading & Resources

Further Reading: Literature

March Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine by Melba Pattillo Beals (2018)

This sequel to Warriors Don’t Cry for young readers describes Melba’s life and achievements following her year at Central High School.

Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black by Gregory Howard Williams (1996)

Williams, a chronological contemporary of Melba, believed until he was 10 years old that he was white, but found out upon relocating to his father’s ancestral home that he was biracial; his memoir details the persecution he experienced both from the white and Black communities when he attended an integrated high school.

Further Reading: Beyond Literature (Nonfiction)

The Little Rock Nine and School Desegregation by Charlotte Taylor and Mara Miller (2015)

This young-adult nonfiction narrative examines the struggles faced by the nine Black students who entered Little Rock Central High in 1957.

Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Russell Freedman (2006)

Two years before the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her bus seat to a white man, leading to the yearlong Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, a milestone in the Civil Rights Movement. Freedman is a distinguish author of young-adult books dealing with Civil Rights.

Video & Podcast resources

Negro Student Melba Patillo Prepares for School in Newly INTERGRATED [sic] Central High School YouTube (1957)

This BBC compilation of partial and repeated interviews with Melba conducted on the second morning of her attendance is interspersed with clips of other students, Black citizens, their homes, and Central High; Melba and Little Rock Nine student Ernest downplay the treatment they receive from segregationists.

Interview with Melba Beals, One of the Little Rock Nine YouTube (2019)

In this interview, Melba describes the attitudes and expectations of the Little Rock Nine before the first day of classes at Central High School.

blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text