Melba was 12 years old on May 17, — the date the Supreme Court ruled in "Brown vs. Board of Education" that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Just over a year later, on May 24, , the Little Rock school board adopted a plan to limit integration to Central High School, but claimed this would not occur for another two years. When the time came to sign up for Central High, Melba raised her hand and put her name on the sheet.
I reasoned that if schools were open to my people, I would also get access to other opportunities I had been denied, like Then, on Dec. Parks'action and the tremendous response from the community gave Melba hope for change, despite Governor Orval Fauvus'refusal to allow integration in public schools.
But it was Melba's first trip to Cincinnati, Ohio in early August, that gave her a glimpse of life without segregation. On this unforgettable trip to visit relatives, Melba went to the movies with a white friend, ate at lunch counters and fancy restaurants, walked through department stores, and used "regular" bathrooms. For the first time, white people — from her relatives'neighbors to salespeople and waiters — were friendly and treated her with respect.
Melba wanted to stay forever, but the trip was called short when they received the call from Little Rock that she was among nine black children who would be entering Central High that fall.
Inspired by the life she saw in Cincinnati, Melba returned to Arkansas with the conviction that one day she would receive the same respect in Little Rock. Of the original 17 students that had signed up for Central High, only nine — Melba and eight other black students — chose to stand up to the threats of violence and take on the challenge of integration. These nine childhood friends had much in common: they were all strong students, with strict, hardworking parents. They were a Quaker family whose patriarch was a psychologist who also helped found Sonoma State University.
Throughout the lecture she referred to her Black parents and her White parents interchangeably. She said she addressed this because she wanted listeners to reflect on what equality is. Voice, choice and inclusion were her three hallmarks of equality. I want a voice. She talked about her early years and how her grandmother helped raise her while her mother was getting her teaching degree.
While taking classes at the University of Arkansas, her mother was seated encased in a white picket fence in the middle of the classroom. She describing how she had to get onto a bus at the front, pay the fare, get off the bus, take the sidewalk to the rear of the bus, then use the rear door to sit in the back where it smelled of oil and smoke. Living in an African American neighborhood patrolled by the KKK every night, she confessed that she wanted to get out of Little Rock from the time she was 4 years old.
In endevoring to find her voice and help others claim theirs, the doctor admitted that she and her family had no idea of the uproar that would ensue at Central High when she enrolled a decade later. Board of Education Supreme Court desegregation decision of She has one daughter, Kellie and twin sons, Matthew and Evan. Beals' book Warriors Don't Cry chronicles the events of during the Little Rock crisis, based partly on diaries she kept during that period. She also wrote White is a State of Mind , which begins where Warriors left off.
In , she and the rest of the Nine were awarded the highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal. Only three hundred others have received this. The day marked USF's th annual commencement ceremony. She taught journalism at Dominican University of California, where she is the chair emeritus of the communications department. Image: arkansasonline. Melba Pattillo Beals. The basics. The details from wikipedia. View Melba Pattillo Beals 's image gallery.
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