Melba Pattillo Beals

New York City Mayor Robert Wagner greeting the teenagers who integrated Central High SchoolPictured, front row, left to right: Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Carlotta Walls, Mayor Robert Wagner, Thelma Mothershed, Gloria Ray; back row, left to right: Terrence Roberts, Ernest Green, Melba Pattilo, Jefferson Thomas.New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer: Albertin, Walter, photographer. [Public domain]In the 1950s, the Southern United States was not the place to be if you were African American. Forced to drink out of different water fountains, pay more for food and go to a different school than the white students were normal in Little Rock, Arkansas. They would be attacked and assaulted, verbally abused, and treated as if they weren’t human. For Melba Pattillo Beals, her daily life involved being able to withstand these ordeals. Beals was born on Pearl Harbor Day (December 7th, 1941) to a mother and father who valued education and hard work. Even on the day of her birth, she faced racism. Melba had damage to her scalp but white nurses would not give a newborn Melba the treatment the doctor had told them to. Throughout her childhood, she was a high achiever and, although her teachers taught well in her segregated schools, she knew she wouldn’t get the same opportunities as a white student would. In 1954, President Eisenhower proposed an idea to integrate a group of black students to Central High in Little Rock. When Melba was eligible to be in this group, she volunteered without telling her parents (“Melba Pattillo Beals”). This group of students would be later known as the Little Rock Nine. They are famously known from the first day of going to the school when they faced a mob of angry parents trying to prevent them from entering the building. During school, Melba had to sustain punching, kicking, acid being thrown in her face, and many other forms of abuse. That experience made her into the person she is today. By remaining resilient while overcoming countless forms of abuse and showing courage to face adults and students who wanted to kill her, Melba Pattillo Beals demonstrates the character of a true hero.

The endless amount of violence and abuse brought to Melba in her town and at Central High School made her resilient. Even before Melba attended Central High, “a hellish torture chamber” she went through many horrific experiences as a young black girl (Ternus-Bellamy). When Beals was ten, a man went up to her and started to punch and kick her: “I scratched and kicked and thrashed against him with every ounce of strength I could muster. His huge fist smashed hard against my face. I struggled to push him back and to keep the dark curtain of unconsciousness from descending over me” (Beals 17). Even as an elementary school student, Melba had to fight on her own. A white man who’s twice her size is beating her up, yet she still tries to fight back. It shows the strength and will that Melba had to be able to not give up, that she valued her dignity and would not accept the way she was being treated. She was African American, female, and a child, which meant practically nobody was there for her. Yet she had an almost relentless attitude, that she would never surrender to anyone. This quality was what allowed her to get an advanced education and become an empowering being to others like her. When going to Central High, Melba had to endure a number of attacks on her, “She was tripped, spat upon, cut by broken glass, forced under scalding hot showers, and pelted with burning paper. On one occasion, acid was thrown into her eyes[...]Beals passed the time praying and clinging to the goal of simple survival” (“Melba Pattillo Beals”). Every day, Melba had to face hundreds of students that wanted her dead. Nevertheless, she continued to go to Central High and get the education she wanted, to make sure accomplishing her dreams was possible. She survived all the violence brought upon her, and instead of this breaking her down and making her want to give up on life, she instead hoped things would get better, and convinced herself that they would. She knew that in order to get a good education, she would have to not only endure the beatings and name-calling, but the depression and stress of being surrounded by violence towards her. If anything, it made Beals adamant to survive at school so she could make an impact on rights to education. This determination she had, despite knowing that she would be treated terribly, and still facing the angry students and parents at Central High, defines the true meaning of resilience.

A quote by Melba Pattillo Bealsoriginal workMelba showed courage by going to Central High for a whole year, facing numerous attacks on her every day by students and adults. During school, Melba had to deal with far more problems than a normal high school student would today. The racism and violence brought upon black people at the time made Melba wonder every day, “[A]m I gonna be hanged or am I gonna get it over the head. Am I gonna be hit in the back of the head with something or am I gonna blow up with a stick of dynamite? You know, what's going to be left of me? My concerns began to be those concerns of some, I was some odd combination of adult-child warrior” (Blackwell Inc). Although she wasn’t expecting the violence that she had to face, Melba had the courage inside her to face her problems head-on. It originally caught her by surprise that so many people, especially adults who were supposed to be trustworthy and respectful encouraged their children to hurt her. She had to worry whether she would even survive the day, every morning as she entered the school campus. Despite her worries, she had then realized that she had something to prove. She became aware that she was participating in a greater cause; that she had to make a difference for future African American children so they wouldn’t have to face what she had faced. One day while facing an extremely brutal beating, Melba had almost lost hope, saying, “The voice inside my head only [said] I was going to die, that there was nothing I could do about it. The white man was in charge. But then I could hear Grandma India saying over and over again, ‘God is always with you’” (Beals 16). Melba found the courage to not just take the beatings, and to keep fighting. When she doubted herself, she thought of her grandma’s words, and pushed her fears aside. She knew that if she would accept defeat, there would be no change in how African Americans were treated; being silent was the same as doing nothing. This moral of hers allowed her to stand up for herself, to show that she wouldn't let the segregation of her town stop her from doing what’s right. She faced her fears and became an advocate and inspiration to African American children who had big dreams and wanted to go far in the world, just as she did.

Melba Pattillo Beals is an inspiration to all, being able to survive the abuse at Central High and having the courage to go to an all-white school, which was extremely dangerous at the time. Her bravery and resilience impacted the way African American students are treated. By being one of the first to attend an all-white school in a time where the South in the United States was segregated and surviving an endless amount of attacks, Beals started a “revolution” of allowing equality in education for children of all races. When asked about her experience and how a human being could treat someone the way she was treated, she responded, "It's a thing that triggers people to mistreat other people and not to remember that we are all God's children and we are all human. And when that thing arises, each of us is responsible to do what we have to do to stop it. So Little Rock taught me to respect human life and to know that I cannot give it so don't take it and don't abuse it. Because I will not go ever into the space that anybody went with me, I will not do that to another human being. So it taught me to love" (Blackwell Inc). Melba used what happened to her as a learning experience, and she has taught others to be grateful to be alive, to treat others how they would want to be treated, something that everyone should think about. She spreads the joy of human life, but never forgets her experience at Central High. Melba Pattillo Beals is a true hero and inspiration in her strength and bravery to fight for and be apart of having equal opportunities, no matter what race they are.

Works Cited

Beals, Melba Pattillo. WARRIORS DON'T CRY. POCKET Books, 1994.

Blackwell Inc, director. Interview with Melba Pattillo Beals. Interview with Melba Pattillo

Beals, repository.wustl.edu/concern/videos/vd66w1480.

"Melba Pattillo Beals." Contemporary Black Biography, vol. 94, Gale, 2012. Biography In Context, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/K1606000791/BIC?u=powa9245&sid=BIC&xid=4d42b9e9. Accessed 21 Mar. 2019.

Ternus-Bellamy, Anne. “Davis Audience Hears from Civil-Rights Hero.” Davis Enterprise, 31 Aug. 2014, www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/hero-of-the-civil-rights-movement/.