50 Fun Facts About Warriors Don't Cry

In Warriors Don't Cry, which food lands on two boys in the cafeteria clash that gets Melba's close friend suspended?

Chili from a dropped lunch tray earned the girl a six-day suspension, and a second clash weeks later made her the only one of the nine to be expelled.

Which president sent federal troops to escort Melba Pattillo and the Little Rock Nine into Central High in 1957?

Dwight D. Eisenhower called the mob's actions disgraceful and ordered in 1,200 soldiers; in the memoir, federal officials bring his promise of protection to Melba's door at night.

In Warriors Don't Cry, what does a boy throw into Melba's eyes in a Central High hallway, nearly blinding her?

Acid would have cost Melba her sight if her Army bodyguard had not flushed her eyes with water straight away.

Melba Pattillo Beals, author of Warriors Don't Cry, was born on the very day of which 1941 event?

The attack on Pearl Harbor filled the news the day she was born, and a forceps injury to her scalp nearly killed her when nurses neglected the care a doctor had ordered.

Which civil rights leader sat in the audience when Central High graduated its first Black student in May 1958?

Martin Luther King Jr. sat with the graduate's family and went almost unnoticed; he was in the state to give a college commencement speech in Pine Bluff.

Which governor ordered state soldiers to keep Melba Pattillo and eight other Black students out of Central High in 1957?

Orval Faubus went on television to say he was preventing violence, and after federal soldiers arrived he told viewers the city was now an occupied territory.

Which member of the Little Rock Nine walked alone into a jeering crowd at Central High after missing a change of plan?

Elizabeth Eckford's family had no telephone, so she never heard that the meeting place had moved; she ended up on a bus bench with the mob around her.

Which Army division escorted Melba Pattillo and the rest of the Little Rock Nine into Central High in September 1957?

The 101st Airborne, nicknamed the Screaming Eagles, came from Fort Campbell, and the Army went on to give each of the nine a guard for the walk between classes.

In Warriors Don't Cry, what is the first name of the grandmother who tells Melba that warriors don't cry?

India Peyton lived with the family, and she called Melba a quitter when the girl wanted to return to her old school after the first day's mob.

Which NAACP lawyer, winner of the 1954 school desegregation case, inspires Melba when they meet in Warriors Don't Cry?

Thurgood Marshall sat with the nine at the federal court hearing that September, and ten years later he became the Supreme Court's first Black justice.

Which 1954 Supreme Court ruling against segregated schools opens the way for Melba's transfer in Warriors Don't Cry?

Brown v. Board of Education came down on May 17, 1954, and in the memoir a white man attacks seventh-grader Melba on her walk home that day in revenge for it.

In Warriors Don't Cry, which of the nine is expelled from Central High after retaliating against harassment?

Minnijean, Melba's closest friend among the nine, moved to New York to finish school, living with the psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark.

Which member of the Little Rock Nine, a senior that year, became Central High's first Black graduate in 1958?

Ernest Green went on to serve as an Assistant Secretary of Labor under President Jimmy Carter, and a 1993 Disney Channel film retold his year at the school.

Which state NAACP president opened her home as the meeting place for Melba and the Little Rock Nine in 1957?

Daisy Bates and her husband also published a weekly Black newspaper, and the nine faced the press at her house while the governor fought them in court.

Which president presented Melba Pattillo Beals and the Little Rock Nine with Congress's highest civilian award?

Bill Clinton, a former governor of Arkansas, handed each of the nine a Congressional Gold Medal in November 1999, forty-two years after soldiers turned them away.

In Warriors Don't Cry, what does Melba's mother throw to her as men chase them from Central High on the first day?

The car keys went to a girl with no driver's license, yet Melba reached the car first and drove them both away from the men, one of whom carried a rope.

Melba Pattillo Beals based much of Warriors Don't Cry on which record she kept as a teenager in 1957?

Her diaries let her set her teenage voice beside her adult one, and when the memoir came out in 1994 it was the first book by any of the nine.

After Central High was shut, Melba Pattillo finished her senior year of high school in which California city?

Santa Rosa was home to the McCabes, a white family who answered an NAACP appeal for households willing to take in the nine after the governor closed the schools.

In Warriors Don't Cry, which soldier is assigned as Melba's bodyguard and teaches her to stay alert in the halls?

Danny tells Melba she must think like a soldier to survive the year, and he breaks protocol to urge her to take care of herself the day before Thanksgiving break.

In Warriors Don't Cry, which white Central High senior secretly warns Melba about the segregationists' plans?

Link lends Melba his own car so she can escape a boy who is threatening to kill her, even though his own father is a white supremacist.

Before volunteering for Central High, Melba Pattillo attended which all-Black school in Little Rock?

Horace Mann was where a teacher asked who in Central's district wanted to transfer, and Melba raised her hand without asking her mother or grandmother first.

The McCabes, the California family who take Melba in at the end of Warriors Don't Cry, belong to which faith?

Quaker parents George and Carol McCabe answered an NAACP call for families willing to shelter the students, and Melba finished high school from their home.

In Warriors Don't Cry, what does Melba's mother nearly lose when officials press her to pull Melba out of Central High?

Her teaching contract was renewed only after she took the story to the press and a powerful Black bishop stepped in on her behalf.

In Warriors Don't Cry, Melba's father Howell Pattillo earns his living working for which kind of employer?

A railroad job on the Missouri Pacific is why Melba was born in a white hospital that also treated Black rail workers, where nurses neglected her care.

In Warriors Don't Cry, what is the name of Melba's younger brother, who shares the family home during the crisis?

Conrad grew up to wear a badge himself, serving as a state trooper and as a federal lawman in the city where his sister had needed armed guards.

In Warriors Don't Cry, what is Mr. Higgenbottom, which Melba's grandmother keeps beside her on night watch?

A shotgun earned the nickname once threatening phone calls began reaching the house, and she sat up with it at night to guard the family.

In Warriors Don't Cry, which northern city is Melba visiting when she learns she has been picked for Central High?

Cincinnati showed Melba a freer life: she was served in a nice restaurant, browsed a department store and was invited to dinner by a white neighbor.

In Warriors Don't Cry, who is the only guest to show up at Melba's sixteenth birthday party?

Vince, the boy who took Melba on her first date, came alone because her old friends feared they would be killed for being seen with her.

In Warriors Don't Cry, what does someone lob at Melba in a Central High stairwell while soldiers guard the school?

A stick of dynamite is where her bodyguard's lessons pay off: he had drilled her to stay as alert as a soldier expecting an attack.

During their year at Central High, Melba Pattillo and the Little Rock Nine were barred from taking part in what?

Extracurricular activities were closed to them, so no clubs, teams or choir, and the nine did not share a single class with one another either.

The 1954 schools ruling behind Warriors Don't Cry overturned which 1896 precedent that had allowed segregation?

Plessy v. Ferguson had let states keep the races apart so long as facilities were called equal, and the justices overruled it for schools by a unanimous vote.

What name is given to the months after Melba Pattillo left Central High, when the city's high schools stayed shut?

The Lost Year kept Melba from returning to Central as a senior, yet high school football carried on that season by order of the governor.

Which visiting federal judge from North Dakota ordered the Arkansas governor to stop blocking the Little Rock Nine?

Ronald Davies was only filling in because the city's federal bench had sat empty for months, and Fargo later named a high school after him.

Which prize did Melba Pattillo Beals's memoir Warriors Don't Cry win in 1995?

The Robert F. Kennedy Book Award went to a memoir published nearly four decades after the events it describes, by a woman who had since worked as a television reporter.

Which 1999 sequel to Warriors Don't Cry follows Melba Pattillo Beals into adult life in California?

White Is a State of Mind picks up as she leaves Arkansas for a sponsoring family out west, and she added two more memoirs in 2018.

After San Francisco State, Melba Pattillo Beals earned a master's degree in journalism from which university?

Columbia trained her for a reporting career, and decades later she added a doctorate in education and chaired a university communications department.

Which NAACP honor did Melba Pattillo and the rest of the Little Rock Nine receive after their year at Central High?

The Spingarn Medal went jointly to the nine teenagers and to the state NAACP president who had advised them through the crisis.

The soldiers who escorted the Little Rock Nine into Central High were flown in from an Army base in which state?

Kentucky's Fort Campbell sent about 1,200 soldiers, who stayed until November before handing the school back to federalized state troops.

In Warriors Don't Cry, what does Melba's grandmother advise after students pelt Melba with eggs before school?

Pretend to like it, her grandmother said, and it worked: the attackers decided Melba was crazy and backed off.

In Warriors Don't Cry, which remedy do nurses withhold from newborn Melba until a janitor mentions the doctor's orders?

Epsom salts and water were meant to rinse the forceps wound on her scalp every few hours, and the janitor's passing remark is what saved her life.

In Warriors Don't Cry, where do girls trap Melba at Central High before tossing in a flaming wad of paper?

A bathroom stall became a trap once state troops had taken over from her federal guards, a sign that her attackers were growing bolder.

In Warriors Don't Cry, what does Melba do at a reporter's invitation after her first morning inside Central High?

Writes a front-page story: the local newspaper printed the teenager's own account of a morning that ended with police hurrying the nine out of the building.

The 1954 ruling that sets Warriors Don't Cry in motion held that segregated schools violate which amendment?

The Fourteenth Amendment promises equal protection of the laws, and the justices said separate schools break that promise even when the buildings are equal.

Statues of Melba Pattillo and the rest of the Little Rock Nine were dedicated in 2005 on the grounds of which building?

The state capitol was where the governor who shut them out once worked, and since 2022 the street past the school has carried the nine's name too.

In Warriors Don't Cry, which subject does the kind Mrs. Pickwick teach, the one class where Melba feels protected?

Shorthand was a refuge because Mrs. Pickwick sternly warned off any student who tried to harass Melba, while her first teacher that day simply ignored her.

In Warriors Don't Cry, which girls' vice-principal at Central High tries to shield Melba and the others from abuse?

Mrs. Huckaby later wrote her own account of the year, and it reached television in 1981 as the CBS film Crisis at Central High.

In Warriors Don't Cry, which assistant police chief smuggles the Little Rock Nine out of Central High past the mob?

Gene Smith led them out through a dark cellar to waiting cars once the mob outside had grown too large for city police to hold back.

Which 1958 Supreme Court case, argued for the Little Rock Nine, refused to let the school board delay integration?

Cooper v. Aaron told Arkansas that a state cannot ignore a Supreme Court ruling it dislikes; the school board had asked to put integration off for 30 months.

Which Little Rock school superintendent gave his name to the gradual plan that sent Melba Pattillo to Central High?

Virgil Blossom designed the plan to start at one high school and filter down to the lower grades over six years, keeping the number of transfers small.

Central High, the school in Warriors Don't Cry, still holds classes while carrying which federal designation?

National Historic Site status came from Congress in 1998, and the National Park Service helps run it alongside a working public high school.