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White Is a State of Mind
In 1957, while most teenage girls were listening to Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue," watching Elvis gyrate, and having slumber parties, fifteen-year-old Melba Pattillo was escaping the hanging rope of a lynch mob, dodging lighted sticks of dynamite, and washing away the burning acid sprayed into her eyes by segregationists determined to prevent her from integrating Little Rock's Central High School - caught up in the center of a civil rights firestorm that stunned this nation and altered the course of history. Her critically acclaimed and award-winning memoir Warriors Don't Cry chronicled her junior year in high school, the year President Eisenhower took unprecedented, historic action by sending federal troops to escort Melba and her eight black classmates into a previously all-white school. Now, in answer to the often repeated question "What happened next?" Melba has written White Is a State of Mind. Compelled to flee the violent rage percolating in her hometown, young Melba was brought by the NAACP to a safe haven in Santa Rosa, California. This is the story of how she survived - healed from the wounds inflicted on her by an angry country. It is the inspirational story of how she overcame that anger with the love and support of the white family who took her in and taught her she didn't have to yearn for the freedom she assumed she could never really have because of the color of her skin. They taught her that white is a state of mind - that she could alter her state of mind to claim fully her own freedom and equality.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
5 people are currently reading
304 people want to read
About the author
Melba Pattillo Beals
10 books94 followersMelba Pattillo Beals made history as a member of the Little Rock Nine, the nine African-American students involved in the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The world watched as they braved constant intimidation and threats from those who opposed desegregation of the formerly all-white high school. She later recounted this harrowing year in her book titled Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Desegregate Little Rock’s Central High School.
Melba Pattillo was born on December 7, 1941, in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Beals grew up surrounded by family members who knew the importance of an education. Her mother, Lois Marie Pattillo, PhD, was one of the first black graduates of the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1954 and was a high school English teacher at the time of the crisis. Her father, Howell Pattillo, worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. She had one brother, Conrad, who served as a U.S. marshal in Little Rock, and they all lived with her grandmother, India Peyton.
While attending all-black Horace Mann High School in Little Rock, she knew her educational opportunities were not equal to her white counterparts’ opportunities at Central High. In response to this inequality, Pattillo volunteered to transfer to the all-white Central High School with eight other black students from Horace Mann and Dunbar Junior High School. The Little Rock Nine, as they came to be known, faced daily harassment from white students. Beals later recounted that the soldier assigned to protect her instructed her, “In order to get through this year, you will have to become a soldier. Never let your enemy know what you are feeling.” Beals took the soldier’s advice, and, while the rest of the school year remained turbulent, all but one student, Minnijean Brown, was able to finish the school year. Barred from entering Central High the next year when the city’s schools were closed, Pattillo moved to Santa Rosa, California, to live with a sponsoring family who were members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for her senior year of high school.
In 1961, Pattillo married John Beals. They had one daughter but divorced after ten years of marriage. She subsequently adopted two boys.
Beals graduated from San Francisco State University with a BA in journalism and earned an MA in the same field from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She has worked as a communications consultant, a motivational speaker, and as a reporter for San Francisco’s public television station and for the Bay Area’s NBC affiliate.
Beals was the first of the Little Rock Nine to write a book based on her experiences at Central High. Published in 1994, Warriors Don’t Cry gives a first-hand account of the trials Beals encountered from segregationists and racist students. The book was named the American Library Association (ALA) Notable Book for 1995 and won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award that same year. White is a State of Mind, her 1999 sequel to Warriors Don’t Cry, follows Beals from her senior year in high school to her college and family days in California.
Beals was awarded the prestigious Spingarn Medal by the NAACP in 1958, along with other members of the Little Rock Nine and Daisy Bates, their mentor. In 1999, President Bill Clinton presented the nation’s highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal, to the members of the Little Rock Nine. As of 2010, Beals lives in the San Francisco area and works as an author and public speaker.
Melba Pattillo was born on December 7, 1941, in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Beals grew up surrounded by family members who knew the importance of an education. Her mother, Lois Marie Pattillo, PhD, was one of the first black graduates of the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1954 and was a high school English teacher at the time of the crisis. Her father, Howell Pattillo, worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. She had one brother, Conrad, who served as a U.S. marshal in Little Rock, and they all lived with her grandmother, India Peyton.
While attending all-black Horace Mann High School in Little Rock, she knew her educational opportunities were not equal to her white counterparts’ opportunities at Central High. In response to this inequality, Pattillo volunteered to transfer to the all-white Central High School with eight other black students from Horace Mann and Dunbar Junior High School. The Little Rock Nine, as they came to be known, faced daily harassment from white students. Beals later recounted that the soldier assigned to protect her instructed her, “In order to get through this year, you will have to become a soldier. Never let your enemy know what you are feeling.” Beals took the soldier’s advice, and, while the rest of the school year remained turbulent, all but one student, Minnijean Brown, was able to finish the school year. Barred from entering Central High the next year when the city’s schools were closed, Pattillo moved to Santa Rosa, California, to live with a sponsoring family who were members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for her senior year of high school.
In 1961, Pattillo married John Beals. They had one daughter but divorced after ten years of marriage. She subsequently adopted two boys.
Beals graduated from San Francisco State University with a BA in journalism and earned an MA in the same field from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She has worked as a communications consultant, a motivational speaker, and as a reporter for San Francisco’s public television station and for the Bay Area’s NBC affiliate.
Beals was the first of the Little Rock Nine to write a book based on her experiences at Central High. Published in 1994, Warriors Don’t Cry gives a first-hand account of the trials Beals encountered from segregationists and racist students. The book was named the American Library Association (ALA) Notable Book for 1995 and won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award that same year. White is a State of Mind, her 1999 sequel to Warriors Don’t Cry, follows Beals from her senior year in high school to her college and family days in California.
Beals was awarded the prestigious Spingarn Medal by the NAACP in 1958, along with other members of the Little Rock Nine and Daisy Bates, their mentor. In 1999, President Bill Clinton presented the nation’s highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal, to the members of the Little Rock Nine. As of 2010, Beals lives in the San Francisco area and works as an author and public speaker.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
April 8, 2020
Melba Patillo Beals of the Little Rock Nine first wrote "Warriors Don't Cry" about her experience of integrating Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. This is her book explaining her experiences in Santa Rosa, CA, where she lived with a white family who were members of the NAACP and had four children. The two older girls were close to Melba's age and she shared a bedroom with them.
From Santa Rosa she went on to college at San Francisco State College. Her first living arrangements were not ideal so she found a room at a Residence Club in downtown San Francisco. This was her first experience of living on her own. She was also the first black resident.
Ms. Beals details some of her college classes where she felt free enough to have a heated discussion about integration. She also details a lot of her social activities with the other women at the residence club where she lived.
The one thing that I didn't care for was the amount of time that was devoted to her social life and then her dating life with a white man named Matt.
From Santa Rosa she went on to college at San Francisco State College. Her first living arrangements were not ideal so she found a room at a Residence Club in downtown San Francisco. This was her first experience of living on her own. She was also the first black resident.
Ms. Beals details some of her college classes where she felt free enough to have a heated discussion about integration. She also details a lot of her social activities with the other women at the residence club where she lived.
The one thing that I didn't care for was the amount of time that was devoted to her social life and then her dating life with a white man named Matt.
March 3, 2016
White Is a State of Mind is the continuation of Beals's memoir Warriors Don't Cry. She picks up right where the first book left off, with her move to California to finish high school. Nothing goes as planned, or as she hopes. Beals's experience adjusting to a mostly white environment, but one that is very different from Little Rock, and finding her place in 1960s California Bay Area is at times relatable and also frustrating. (Sometimes I didn't understand her choices or what she put up with.) She struggled hard to make a life for herself, and I'm so glad she wrote a book about it to share what happened after she was a member of the Little Rock Nine.
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October 13, 2008Moves me - a Filipino. I'm pretty sure it would make more impact on Americans.
January 6, 2020
4.5. Everyone should read this book. Especially everyone in the US. Maybe especially if we are white. Or maybe just especially if we are not Black. We should read all her books. Her whole story. Mrs. Patillo Beals is a wonderful writer, and she spins a compelling story. The narrative is mostly reliable. Unlike "Warriors Don't Cry", this book can't be verified by newspaper articles and photojournalism records. Based on historical accounts of the period I have read, most of the book seems plausible. However, there are aspects of her story that don't seem likely, even as they seem truthful in regard to her understanding of herself and her own place within the story. A memory can be very true in the sense that an experience and the way we remember it shaped us, and at the same time may not have actually happened the way we remember it. (If there is a large crowd and a single voice with no microphone calls out, it feels unlikely to me that the entire crowd would hear and respond to that voice as though they understood it word for word. If no one knew her identity as one of the Little Rock Nine prior to that moment, then in that moment - which would have gone by so quickly - I'm not convinced people would have responded as she remembers even if they did hear him.) Ultimately, I don't think the facts of those moments are as important to the telling of her story as the impact they had on her - which is why it matters that this is memoir and not biography. I absolutely believe her memories as memory, and I'd love to find that a biographer did the necessary research to discover how those memories fit into recorded history and balance against the experiences and memories of other people who lived it with her.
Reading "White is a State of Mind" I found myself reflecting on when my state of mind is white and when my state of mind is Jewish. When my state of mind is one-of-the-majority, and when my state of mind is . . . not. I would love to sit with and talk with Kay and George, Melba's white family - the white couple and their children with whom she lived when she escaped Arkansas. I would like to talk with them about our whiteness. I don't want to talk with Matt - her ex husband - or his family. I am, though, curious what they think about their whiteness. Whiteness. As a state of mind.
We should all read this book, especially if we are white, because so much of our world is shaped by experiences like Mrs. Patillo Beals's. I don't mean the extraordinary year during which she integrated Central High School in Little Rock - the main story of Warriors Don't Cry. I mean the more ordinary racism she was subjected to in her childhood (March Forward, Girl), and after she escaped Arkansas which we read about in this book, "White is a State of Mind."
I also think there is something in here for us to understand about the ways we - as humans - respond to trauma. Her choices post-Central are all informed by her traumatic experiences. Her inability to stay in her California high school, her response to the family that took her in and called her theirs, her reaction to friends, her willingness to date and then marry someone who would treat her as he did (not exactly a spoiler), her pushing people away, her desperation to be accepted and liked, even the way she framed the stories in this book - all make me curious about what a trauma-aware biographer might do with this memoir as a primary source.
There are places in this book that ramble, for certain. Places that repeat a story already told in another of Melba Patillo Beals’ books. I don’t really care. When her story repeats, I think it's valuable to read it again.
In so many ways, Melba Patillo Beals's story is our story. It's a story of our country. It's a story of the relationships within our country. It's the story of the structures within which we live. It's the story of the world we created, inherited, and continue to create.
Memoir disclaimer: I prefer history to memoir. I prefer biography (written by a historian) to autobiography. I like citations. I like evidence. I like corroborated evidence. When I read memoir, I read it as a primary source. Often insightful, engaging, an interesting lens. And yet, the truth in memoir is the truth of that one individual. It matters, it is important, but by method, it's not history.
I find memoir needs its own rubric for rating. Because memoir is personal story, I don't want to assess stars to the narrative itself or to the expression of identity and personal experience that memoir captures. However, memoir is also writing, and reading memoir is a rateable experience.
Therefore I ask myself:
1. How important is it that people read this person's account of their experience? It might be that regardless of all other factors, the experience expressed within the book is itself so critical in our understanding of our world and our humanity that we truly should read this book, or it might be that there are plenty of other books through which we are more effectively invited into this situation or experience.
2. How reliable is this narrative? If the author does not make a plausible case for the validity of their story, or if their telling has been proven fatally flawed, no matter how important the book feels it loses credibility and therefore cannot receive a high rating.
3. How well does this particular author narrate their own experience? Is it coherent? Can someone who has not shared the experience understand the experience and gain insight from it?
4. How much did I enjoy the experience of reading it?
Reading "White is a State of Mind" I found myself reflecting on when my state of mind is white and when my state of mind is Jewish. When my state of mind is one-of-the-majority, and when my state of mind is . . . not. I would love to sit with and talk with Kay and George, Melba's white family - the white couple and their children with whom she lived when she escaped Arkansas. I would like to talk with them about our whiteness. I don't want to talk with Matt - her ex husband - or his family. I am, though, curious what they think about their whiteness. Whiteness. As a state of mind.
We should all read this book, especially if we are white, because so much of our world is shaped by experiences like Mrs. Patillo Beals's. I don't mean the extraordinary year during which she integrated Central High School in Little Rock - the main story of Warriors Don't Cry. I mean the more ordinary racism she was subjected to in her childhood (March Forward, Girl), and after she escaped Arkansas which we read about in this book, "White is a State of Mind."
I also think there is something in here for us to understand about the ways we - as humans - respond to trauma. Her choices post-Central are all informed by her traumatic experiences. Her inability to stay in her California high school, her response to the family that took her in and called her theirs, her reaction to friends, her willingness to date and then marry someone who would treat her as he did (not exactly a spoiler), her pushing people away, her desperation to be accepted and liked, even the way she framed the stories in this book - all make me curious about what a trauma-aware biographer might do with this memoir as a primary source.
There are places in this book that ramble, for certain. Places that repeat a story already told in another of Melba Patillo Beals’ books. I don’t really care. When her story repeats, I think it's valuable to read it again.
In so many ways, Melba Patillo Beals's story is our story. It's a story of our country. It's a story of the relationships within our country. It's the story of the structures within which we live. It's the story of the world we created, inherited, and continue to create.
Memoir disclaimer: I prefer history to memoir. I prefer biography (written by a historian) to autobiography. I like citations. I like evidence. I like corroborated evidence. When I read memoir, I read it as a primary source. Often insightful, engaging, an interesting lens. And yet, the truth in memoir is the truth of that one individual. It matters, it is important, but by method, it's not history.
I find memoir needs its own rubric for rating. Because memoir is personal story, I don't want to assess stars to the narrative itself or to the expression of identity and personal experience that memoir captures. However, memoir is also writing, and reading memoir is a rateable experience.
Therefore I ask myself:
1. How important is it that people read this person's account of their experience? It might be that regardless of all other factors, the experience expressed within the book is itself so critical in our understanding of our world and our humanity that we truly should read this book, or it might be that there are plenty of other books through which we are more effectively invited into this situation or experience.
2. How reliable is this narrative? If the author does not make a plausible case for the validity of their story, or if their telling has been proven fatally flawed, no matter how important the book feels it loses credibility and therefore cannot receive a high rating.
3. How well does this particular author narrate their own experience? Is it coherent? Can someone who has not shared the experience understand the experience and gain insight from it?
4. How much did I enjoy the experience of reading it?
February 14, 2011
This sequel to "Warriors Don't Cry" was an powerful continuation of Beals' narrative in a slightly different way. While Warriors is largely event-driven, "White is a State of Mind" follows Beals' transition from a young hero and martyr for racial integration in the South to her adjustment to living in a much subtler world of racial divides in California and her personal coming of age in the wake of integrating Little Rock Central High School.
June 5, 2011
this is the follow up to WArriors don't cry. I am very interested in her state of mind and this book has helped open some light to understanding her a little better. It is sad to see all that she went through afterwards, but her amazing strength to keep moving forward. Another thing that has struck me is how people or opportunities are placed in our lives at the right moment so we can best grow. I think this book will end up being as powerful as the first.
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October 4, 2014Melba was a high school student when she became the world-famous Little Rock Nine. After the historical moment of 1957 in U.S. history, she moved to California to heal the scars of racial hatred and hostility. This book writes about "what happened next" after the Little Rock event. She described how she overcame oppressions in all forms in her life.
September 10, 2008
I loved this book..We all heard about the Little Rock Nine but this gave you and in depth personal view of what really happened with Ms. Beals...I have been trying to find her first book to read because that one goes into great detail of her Little Rock Experience...Definitely read this.
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February 26, 2008Very eye opening!
July 27, 2012
Sequel to Warriors Don't Cry. It's a really fascinating insight into what happened next to Melba, one of the Little Rock Nine, after her year integrating Central High School in Little Rock.
June 25, 2009
So sad that this happened not so long ago.
January 5, 2018
After reading an ARC of Melba Pattillo Beals' YA nonfiction book March Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine, I was really interested in reading about her life after she left Arkansas for California. I was also really interested in learning how her beloved grandmother felt about all the civil rights changes that happened in the 1960s. Since her Grandmother India was in her 50s during the 1950s, it never occurred to me that she may not have lived to see the 1960s. Sadly, she did not. She died of leukemia before Ms. Beals left to attend high school in California.
In California, the author found herself on guard at first. Were the white people there just pretending to be nice to her? Would they eventually turn on her? Would the kids in the high school she was attending in Santa Rosa soon be kicking, spitting, tripping and hitting her? When none of this happened, Ms. Beals was of course relieved and happy, but mixed feeling would soon overwhelm her at times. She was not use to being around white people and trusting them, not use to being around kids whose main concern seemed to be having fun. A Christmas trip back home, however, showed her home was really no longer home. She could no longer take the oppression in Arkansas, no longer take having to spend so much time worrying about the KKK, and what they or other hateful individuals might do to her and her family.
Back in California, Ms. Beals continues with her life and soon leaves high school for college in San Francisco. There she learns what it's like to be on her own and to be very alone at times. There's also the constant concern that she should be more active in the Civil Rights Movement, even though she often had no desire to be involved again in all the conflict. In addition, when she did finally acquire a tight group of friends, she had to deal with the new morality of the sixties, which greatly clashed with her strict religious upbringing. Her grandmother may have died, but she was never gone in young Melba Pattillo's mind or life. Her voice was still heard telling her granddaughter what was right or wrong, what was proper or improper.
White Is A State Of Mind is an exceptional memoir by an exceptional memoirist. Ms. Beals takes the reader on a long, eventful trip through her life as a teenager to her life as an adult and mother. She shows how a childhood cruelly controlled by Jim Crow laws still helped to create a strong, moral child who would grow up to be a strong, moral adult. A woman who one day realized her life was all hers to live; no race, no man, no one had the right to dictate to her how to live or what to think.
In California, the author found herself on guard at first. Were the white people there just pretending to be nice to her? Would they eventually turn on her? Would the kids in the high school she was attending in Santa Rosa soon be kicking, spitting, tripping and hitting her? When none of this happened, Ms. Beals was of course relieved and happy, but mixed feeling would soon overwhelm her at times. She was not use to being around white people and trusting them, not use to being around kids whose main concern seemed to be having fun. A Christmas trip back home, however, showed her home was really no longer home. She could no longer take the oppression in Arkansas, no longer take having to spend so much time worrying about the KKK, and what they or other hateful individuals might do to her and her family.
Back in California, Ms. Beals continues with her life and soon leaves high school for college in San Francisco. There she learns what it's like to be on her own and to be very alone at times. There's also the constant concern that she should be more active in the Civil Rights Movement, even though she often had no desire to be involved again in all the conflict. In addition, when she did finally acquire a tight group of friends, she had to deal with the new morality of the sixties, which greatly clashed with her strict religious upbringing. Her grandmother may have died, but she was never gone in young Melba Pattillo's mind or life. Her voice was still heard telling her granddaughter what was right or wrong, what was proper or improper.
White Is A State Of Mind is an exceptional memoir by an exceptional memoirist. Ms. Beals takes the reader on a long, eventful trip through her life as a teenager to her life as an adult and mother. She shows how a childhood cruelly controlled by Jim Crow laws still helped to create a strong, moral child who would grow up to be a strong, moral adult. A woman who one day realized her life was all hers to live; no race, no man, no one had the right to dictate to her how to live or what to think.
December 19, 2019
In the book, White is a State of Mind by Melba Pattillo Beals, it is about a young teenager who is ready to find her adventure and passions. This is a book that is set after Melba’s junior year of high school at Central High in Little Rock Arkansas. Melba Pattillo Beals was sent to Santa Rosa, California by the NAACP to stay with a white family. The characters in this book are mostly Melba, Conrad, Lois, Grandma India, Melba’s friends, and the white family who Melba stayed with. I ended up finding this book through Warriors Don’t Cry that I had read during my freshman year of High School.
This book was about Melba being able to take on challenges and face her fears during new situations. Starting a new journey for Melba after her junior year, was a little difficult. She tried going to a new school for the first time with the white family’s children. When she went into the new school, it was hard because she kept on getting lost and getting used to the whole place. Teachers and students were kind and made her feel welcome. As the year went on Melba has been actually doing well in her studies. A conflict was when her mom called and said that the grade is good but it needs to be better. Melba thinks she has been doing well and working hard. After her year at the new school, she went on to go to college, have a marriage, and had kids.
Melba’s strength in this book is just phenomenal and inspiring to see her grow as a young teenager to becoming an adult. One of my favorite quotes was “Be patient, wait on the Lord. Your blessings will be realized,”(Grandma India). Some similar books would include any other Melba Pattillo Beal’s novels, a biography about civil rights activist, autobiographies, and the Little Rock Nine books. People who like learning about history, segregation, the civil rights movement, and the 1950s to 1960s might like this book.
This book was about Melba being able to take on challenges and face her fears during new situations. Starting a new journey for Melba after her junior year, was a little difficult. She tried going to a new school for the first time with the white family’s children. When she went into the new school, it was hard because she kept on getting lost and getting used to the whole place. Teachers and students were kind and made her feel welcome. As the year went on Melba has been actually doing well in her studies. A conflict was when her mom called and said that the grade is good but it needs to be better. Melba thinks she has been doing well and working hard. After her year at the new school, she went on to go to college, have a marriage, and had kids.
Melba’s strength in this book is just phenomenal and inspiring to see her grow as a young teenager to becoming an adult. One of my favorite quotes was “Be patient, wait on the Lord. Your blessings will be realized,”(Grandma India). Some similar books would include any other Melba Pattillo Beal’s novels, a biography about civil rights activist, autobiographies, and the Little Rock Nine books. People who like learning about history, segregation, the civil rights movement, and the 1950s to 1960s might like this book.
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November 28, 2019After reading Melba Patillo's memoir of the integration of Little Rock's Central High School, I wanted to know more details about what happened next. Instead of letting the black teenagers have a second year in Central High, the governor closed the high schools. This lead to increasing anger towards the families that were involved in the integration from both white and black families. Melba finally had to flee the state when a bounty was placed on her by Klan members.
Let's talk about how she found out about this. Her mother had a cousin who was passing as white. That wasn't that unusual at the time. In fact, she had several relatives passing. But this man was not only married to an unsuspecting white woman and had kids who thought they were all white, he was the sheriff of a small southern town and the head of the local KKK. You read that right. A black man was head of the local KKK. He found out about the bounty on his little cousin and called the family to alert them (presumably before putting the word out to his members). I want to know more about this. I want a whole book about him and then I want that book turned into a miniseries. Somebody make that happen.
She is taken to a safe house in California. The NAACP there was mostly made up of white liberals. It gets cringey. They want so badly to be helpful but they can't understand why she was terrified. She came from an environment where she was only safe with (some) black people and now she is surrounded by white people. It was complete culture shock for her.
She came from a world where survival consumed everyone's thoughts. She had never had the experience of planning to go do something just because it might be fun. She couldn't relate to teenagers with seemingly trivial concerns. On the other hand, once she saw that a better life was possible, she couldn't fit in with the survival mentality in Little Rock. She also had to face discrimination from black people in California who looked down on her for being southern.
She didn't have an easy life but learned gradually to stand up for herself. This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story
September 1, 2020
The resilience that this woman had deserves more than admiration. The wounds that America has produced are highlighted in this memoir. The deep cuts that this country has carved out on its own people. Can’t even imaging the fact that Melba has to relive all these experiences by writing them down. Truly devastating. Here’s to a brighter future.
May 7, 2018
This continuation to Ms. Beals' excellent account of her horrific experience at Central High adds important information, and is a fascinating memoir in its own right. What a long, strange trip it's been.
August 25, 2019
This book was an extended version of Melba's other book, I Will Not Fear, but focused on her college years to her divorce. I should have read this book first since it came out first and the other one extends to the present as it was in 2018.
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February 13, 2023Sequel to Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High, detailing the author's experiences after Central High's segregation. Not as interesting or enlightening as much of the experiences werepersonal and felt it went into unnecessary detail.
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