Audiobooks by Melba Pattillo Beals

March Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine

"Long before she was one of the Little Rock Nine, Melba Pattillo Beals was a warrior. Frustrated by the laws that kept African-Americans separate but very much unequal to whites, she had questions: Why couldn't she drink from a whites only fountain? Why couldn't she feel safe beyond home-or even within the walls of church? Adults all told her: Hold your tongue. Be patient. Know your place. But Beals had the heart of a fighter-and the knowledge that her true place was a free one. This memoir paints a vivid picture of Beals's powerful early journey on the road to becoming a champion for equal rights, an acclaimed journalist, a bestselling author, and the recipient of this country's highest recognition, the Congressional Gold Medal."

Melba Pattillo Beals (Author), Janina Edwards (Narrator)

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I Will Not Fear: My Story of a Lifetime of Building Faith Under Fire

"In 1957, Melba Beals was one of the nine African American students chosen to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. But her story of overcoming didn’t start—or end—there. While her white schoolmates were planning their senior prom, Melba was facing the business end of a double-barreled shotgun, being threatened with lynching by rope-carrying tormentors, and learning how to outrun white supremacists who were ready to kill her rather than sit beside her in a classroom. Only her faith in God sustained her during her darkest days and helped her become a civil rights warrior, an NBC television news reporter, a magazine writer, a professor, a wife, and a mother. In I Will Not Fear, Beals takes listeners on an unforgettable journey through terror, oppression, and persecution, highlighting the kind of faith needed to survive in a world full of heartbreak and anger. She shows how the deep faith we develop during our most difficult moments is the kind of faith that can change our families, our communities, and even the world. Encouraging and inspiring, Beals’ story offers listeners hope that faith is the solution to the pervasive hopelessness of our current culture."

Melba Pattillo Beals (Author), Myra Lucretia Taylor (Narrator)

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Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High

"The landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education, brought the promise of integration to Little Rock, Arkansas, but it was hard-won for the nine black teenagers chosen to integrate Central High School in 1957. They ran a gauntlet flanked by a rampaging mob and a heavily armed Arkansas National Guard—opposition so intense that soldiers from the elite 101st Airborne Division were called in to restore order. For Melba Beals and her eight friends those steps marked their transformation into reluctant warriors—on a battlefield that helped shape the civil rights movement. Warriors Don't Cry, drawn from Melba Beals's personal diaries, is a riveting true account of her junior year at Central High—one filled with telephone threats, brigades of attacking mothers, rogue police, fireball and acid-throwing attacks, economic blackmail, and, finally, a price upon Melba's head. With the help of her English-teacher mother; her eight fellow warriors; and her gun-toting, Bible-and-Shakespeare-loving grandmother, Melba survived. And, incredibly, from a year that would hold no sweet-sixteen parties or school plays, Melba Beals emerged with indestructible faith, courage, strength, and hope."

Melba Pattillo Beals (Author), Lisa Reneé Pitts (Narrator)

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