Melba Beals

Melba Pattillo Beals

Author of Warriors Don't Cry

A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock Central High School

and

White is a State of Mind... Freedom is Yours to Choose

In 1957, while most teenage girls were listening to Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue," watching Elvis gyrate and collecting crinoline slips, a 15-year-old Melba Pattillo was escaping the hanging rope of a lynch mob, dodging lighted sticks of dynamite, and washing away burning acid sprayed into her eyes by segregationists determined to prevent her from integrating Little Rock's Central High School. As a teenager, she was caught up in the center of a civil rights firestorm which stunned this nation and altered the course of history.

WARRIORS DON'T CRY, chronicles her experience as a civil rights heroine. It is a snapshot of a Black family in the south living under a system of apartheid during the 1950s. Facing the oppression which would engulf them, they struggled, holding onto their dignity against overwhelming odds.

Her latest book, WHITE IS A STATE OF MIND, is a sequel which chronicles that part of her journey following her Central High experience. In this book Beals flees from Little Rock's raging segregationist mobs into the protective arms of a white California family. She walks the bridge into adulthood struggling to find her place within the human family and a sense of safety and value.

* * *

At age 12, when Melba read about the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, she was hopeful her life would change. She had grown up drinking from a water fountain marked "colored," riding in the back of the bus and attending separate and inferior Black schools. She daydreamed about attending the all-white Central High (with its massive building covering two square blocks and standing six stories high) in order to avail herself of the opportunities rumored to exist within the castle-like structure.

The civil rights battle which erupted to integrate Little Rock's schools rocked this country, put the world on edge and set Melba's life forever on a different course. She faced angry, rampant killer mobs and renegade police who forced then-President Eisenhower to send combat-ready soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division to protect her life.

At seventeen, Melba began writing articles for major newspapers and magazines. She later earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and worked as a news reporter for San Francisco's public television station, KQED, and for the NBC affiliate, KRON-TV.

Melba Pattillo Beals has written numerous articles for periodicals including People, Essence and the San Francisco Examiner. Her best-selling primer on public relations, EXPOSE YOURSELF: USING THE POWER OF PUBLIC RELATIONS TO PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS AND YOURSELF, is an acknowledged industry reference.

In addition to many national radio shows such as FRESH AIR, she has appeared on numerous television shows, among them OPRAH WINFREY, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, THE CHARLIE ROSE SHOW and C-Span's BOOKNOTES. She and her daughter, Kellie, are writing the screenplay for a feature film based on Warriors.

Warriors has been translated into three languages, French, German and Spanish, and included in the British Edition of Reader's Digest 1995: Today's Best Nonfiction. Ms. Beals has been honored with many distinguished awards, among them:

The American Library Association Award as the 1995 Nonfiction Book of the Year

The prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Book Award

The American Booksellers' Association Award as a notable book of 1995

Included in Reader's Digest 1995 Edition: Today's Best Nonfiction

In 1999, the nine students who integrated Little Rocks Central High School were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, our nations highest civilian honor, in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

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