Warriors Don't Cry

Beginning with an angry white man’s attempted rape of 13-year-old Melba on the day the US Supreme Court struck down school segregation, there is no theme more prevalent in Warrior’s Don’t Cry than the persecution of innocent people. All the unjust persecution Melba records, as experienced by her and the other members of the Little Rock Nine, has several salient similarities. First, the acts of persecution perpetrated by white citizens against the Black students result from actions beyond the control of these Black children. None of the nine have anything to do with the Supreme Court’s decision or the—undescribed in the book—work of the NAACP to create a school integration plan; the only sin of the nine was to agree they would like to attend a better high school that was closer to their homes. Second, those who carry out the persecution, at first, do not know the people they are persecuting. Like soldiers in a religious crusade, those persecuting the nine express a holy rage toward a tiny group of wholly innocent people. Third, no kind of torment is off the table. The segregationists use physical attacks on an almost daily basis, but they also commit psychological battle that elevates the level of fear, threatens financial insecurity, and aims to silence their victims.