Melba Patillo Research Paper

Warriors don’t cry What would you do if u were forced to complete a year of high school not only worrying about what people thought about you, but also having to worry about staying alive? Melba Patillo was forced to live with this overwhelming pressure throughout her junior year when on May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas saying that public schools for whites and blacks were illegal. So when Melba’s teacher asked if anyone who lived within the Central High district would like to go to Central with white children Melba was more than eager to volunteer and explore all those opportunities she had missed out on. Three long years later when it came to the 1957 fall term Melba would be attending
Melba’s family supported Melba through her unbearable junior year at Central High by giving her the necessary strength needed to stick through it and giving her advice that helped her survive through the dangerous halls of Central high School. Her family suffered along with Melba having to endure the constant telephone threats, being shunned by the whole community and even went as far as to costing Melba’s mom her job and not to mention having to worry about if Melba would come home from school alive. Whenever Melba felt like giving up and leaving Central High so she could go back to her old school, Horace Mann her Grandma picked her right back up and changed her mind. “One little setback –and you want out,” she said. “Naw, you’re not a quitter.”(55) Or when Melba began to be overwhelmed with all the suffering and just wished she were dead her Grandma once again influenced her to see things her way. “Whenever you think about going away from this earth, think about how you’d break my heart and your brother’s heart. You might as well take your mother with you because she’d be beside
She not only worried about the things kids today worry about like being accepted by your peers and doing well in school, but above all of this had to worry about just staying alive. Melba was just like any typical teenager her age with the same concerns, but unlike other kids her age had to get through school while being constantly judged and harassed while being completely alone and isolated from everyone else. Though unlike other girls her age she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and was forced to become an adult and mature during that year at Central. Instead of thinking about boys and what she was going to wear to school the next day she had more significant things on her mind like integration. The ways in which I’ve seen racism at work in my own school is people of different nationalities being judged on their level of intelligence based on their nationality. The ways in which I feel like a warrior are that like Melba when I commit to something I like to stick with it even through the hard moments when I want to desperately quit. The key areas of support I think will help me most in the coming year is the support of my family and friends motivating me in to do well in school and supporting me through whatever else I decide to commit to. What I learned from Melba was that I