Fighting Hate, Without Fighting Physically
             The book, Warriors Don't Cry, by Melba Pattillo Beals, describes the lives of the "Little Rock Nine" and what horrors these nine students had to go through in the 1957 integration period in Arkansas. The author, Melba, was one of the nine students that was being integrated into Central High School and she talks of her first encounters with racism and goes on to talk about her life until her last days in Central High School. The book opens up with Melba and her former African-American classmates going back into Central High School in 1987, but this time, they had much support in going into the school, unlike the first time in 1957 where they were treated horribly and told to stay out. Melba walks through the halls in the present day and remembers all the horrible acts of violence and racism they faced when they went to this school.
             It took a while for Melba to actually understand how serious the problem of racism was in the United States, more specifically, in the Southern United States. Melba didn't quite understand that when something was labeled "white" it meant what it said, because she went into the white ladies bathroom and sat down in one of the stalls and went to the bathroom. She didn't find this a very big deal, but the white ladies in the bathroom went and got the police and Melba was explained harshly that she could no longer use anything that said "white only" because that meant it only belongs to whites. She found that Central High School was a white school only and she wanted to see the inside, because it looked so amazing on the outside, therefore she told her grandmother that she would go to that school one day. In 1954 the Supreme Court had ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education, that schools needed to integrate, because it was not constitutional to provide unequal schooling to others. This made a difference to Melb...