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Warriors Don T Cry Melba Quotes

Decent Essays

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things,” Leonardo Da Vinci explains. In the 1950s, racism and equality was a big problem between blacks and whites in America, especially in the south. Melba Pattillo Beals and eight other African-American students in Little Rock, Arkansas stepped up to integrate the all white Central High School and they were forever remembered. As shown through the experiences in the autobiography Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals, Melba is characterized as a religious, determined, and considerate young woman.
The first characteristic Melba is depicted to be is religious and faithful in God. After an angry white man tries to rape her, Melba recalls, “I wore my knees out praying night after night—I …show more content…

Before Melba introduces the eight students who will go to school with her, she states, “At one point there had been sixteen others, but some of them chose not to participate because of the threats of violence” (25). This quote is powerful because it shows that Melba is a true warrior and not a quitter like the other seven people that abandon the integration. Melba is a determined person because she too receives threats of violence, yet she does not retreat in cowardice; she stays and pushes through the long school year. After a day at school, Melba writes in her diary, “This is going to work. It will take a lot more patience and more strength from me, but it’s going to work. It takes more time than I thought. But we’re going to have integration in Little Rock” (117). Melba knows what it will take to make the integration a success and is willing to do anything to make it happen. She is willing to work harder, pray harder, and be stronger than she already has been. Melba is successful and finishes her first year at Central High making her determined spirit and attitude pay

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