Melba Pattillo Beals

Melba Joy Pattillo Beals (born December 7, 1941) is an American journalist and college educator who is widely known as a member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who were the first to integrate Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Melba Pattillo Beals
Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site Visitor Center dedication ceremony, Sept. 24, 2007.
Born
Melba Joy Pattillo

(1941-12-07) December 7, 1941
Little Rock, Arkansas
Alma materSan Francisco State University (BA)
Columbia University (MA)
University of San Francisco (EdD)
Height5’6.5

Early life

Born on December 7, 1941, the same day as the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Beals grew up in a family that prized education. Her mother, Lois Marie Pattillo, earned a PhD, was one of the first black graduates of the University of Arkansas in 1954 who worked as a middle school English teacher. Her black father, Howell Pattillo, worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Beals' brother, Conrad S. Pattillo, served as U.S. Marshal of the Eastern District of Arkansas during the Clinton Administration.

Education

While attending Horace Mann High School in Little Rock, an all-black high school, Patillo became aware that she was not receiving the same quality education as her peers at Central High School. Patillo then volunteered to transfer to the all-white Central High School with eight other black students from Horace Mann and Dunbar Junior High School in Little Rock.[1]

Beals was 14 years old when she chose to enroll at Central High school, an all-white school in May 1956.[2] The nine black students faced mobs that forced President Dwight D. Eisenhower to send in the 101st Airborne Division to protect their lives after the governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, used National Guard troops to block the students' entry to the school. Beals planned on returning to Central High for the 1958–1959 school year, but Governor Faubus shut down all Little Rock high schools that failed to resist integration,[3] leading to other school districts across the South to do the same. Not until August 1959 did Central High reopen on an integrated basis.

Career

Beals relocated to Santa Rosa, California with help from the NAACP to complete her senior year of high school at Montgomery High School. Beals lived with the family of foster parents Dr. George and Carol McCabe.[4] At the age of seventeen, she began writing for major newspapers and magazines.

Beals attended San Francisco State University, earning a bachelor's degree. She later earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.

While in college, she met John Beals, whom she later married. They had one daughter, Kellie, and later divorced. Around 1992, Beals adopted twin sons, Matthew and Evan.[5][6]

Beals' book Warriors Don't Cry chronicles the events of 1957 during the Little Rock crisis, based partly on diaries she kept during the period. She also wrote White is a State of Mind, which begins where Warriors left off.[7] To date, Warriors Don't Cry continues to be a #1 Amazon bestseller in the "Prejudice Books for Teens & Young Adults" genre.[8]

In 1959, the NAACP awarded the Spingarn Medal to Beals and to the other members of the Little Rock Nine, together with civil rights leader Daisy Bates, who had advised the group during their struggles at Central High. In 1999, she and the rest of the Nine were awarded the highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal. Only three hundred others have received this.[9]

On May 22, 2009, she received her Doctoral Degree in Education at the University of San Francisco. The day marked USF's 150th annual commencement ceremony.

Beals currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. She taught journalism at Dominican University of California, where she is the chair emeritus of the communications department.[10]

References

Citations
  1. Beals, Melba Pattillo. "Encyclopedia of Arkansas". Putnam Publishing.
  2. "Melba Pattillo Beals of the Little Rock Nine presents Birkett Williams Lecture at Ouachita". Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  3. "Lost Year", Encyclopedia of Arkansas
  4. Melba Pattillo Beals, Warriors Don't Cry (Pocket Books, 1994), pp. 307–8.
  5. "Q & A with Melba Pattillo Beals". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  6. Melba Pattillo Beals, White is a State of Mind (Putnam Adult, 1999).
  7. Warriors Don't Cry. 2007-07-24. ISBN 9781416948827.
  8. Beals, Melba Pattillo (2007-07-24). Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High (Reissue ed.). New York London Toronto Sydney: Simon Pulse. ISBN 9781416948827.
  9. Anjetta McQueen, "Medals for 9 Heroes," San Francisco Chronicle, November 10, 1999, p. B1.
  10. Department of Communications, Dominican University of California

Bibliography
  • Beals, Melba Pattillo. Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High. New York: Pocket Books, 1994. ISBN 0-671-86638-9
  • Beals, Melba Pattillo. White Is a State of Mind: A Memoir. Putnam Adult, 1999. ISBN 0-399-14464-1
  • Beals, Melba Pattillo. March Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine. HMH Books for Young Readers, 2018. ISBN 1328882128
  • Beals, Melba Pattillo. I Will Not Fear: My Story of a Lifetime of Building Faith under Fire. Revell, 2018. ISBN 0800729439
External video
Booknotes interview with Melba Patillo Beals on Warriors Don't Cry, November 27, 1994, C-SPAN
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