Melba Pattillo Beals

Courageous, determined, brave, gutsy, and many more adjectives all describe Melba during the school year of 1957-58 in the attempts of the Little Rock Nine to integrate Central High School. The unfathomable mental and physical brutality and torture inflicted by the segregationists on these teenagers was relentless. How any of the nine survived is amazing and the fact that eight of them completed the year, shows the depth of their integration conviction.

It also highlights the struggles of Melba's family to support her valiant efforts to receive the same quality of education as her white counterparts in their setting.

As readers we are very fortunate that Melba shared her experiences in this book, as so many of us have no idea what African-Americans have experienced and, unfortunately, many probably still experience, along with other racial minorities.

I was a white, northern, naive 10-year-old in 1957; I cannot imagine the courage it took for those nine students to start, then continue, this monumental effort.… (plus d'informations)