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Church was the center of Melba's community. When her family needed food, they would go to the church and they would help them. If one needed a loan, a doctor, or a dentist the church was the place to go. The church became a place where she felt safe, loved, and happy. The Church and her grandmother India led her to grow up very religious.

This feeling of safety in Church would soon disappear. One day during church, the KKK would come in and hang a man from the rafters, and none of the church could do anything but watch.

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During her time in the Little Rock Nine, she became fascinated with news reporters. She often had to speak and take pictures for the news reporters while she integrated Central. She even dictated an article for a reporter over the phone. Her time spent around reporters led her to become one herself when she grew up.

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President Eisenhower had to send in the 101st to accompany the Little Rock Nine and protect them from angry mobs and deadly attacks. However they could not interfere with the bullying and assaults they faced daily.

Melba became close to her 101st member, Danny. He gave her advice that helped her to survive the year after he left Arkansas. Melba always had a special place for him in her heart.

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Top row, left to right:

Terrence Roberts

Melba Pattillo Beals

Ernest Green

Carlotta Walls LaNier

Daisy Bates (Mentor and head of the NAACP in Arkansas

Jefferson Thomas

Bottom row, left to right:

Thelma Mothershed

Minnijean Brown

Elizabeth Eckford

Gloria Ray

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Melba had dreamed of attending Central High School. She expected some difficulties, but she had not anticipated how emotionally taxing it would be. She had hoped eventually win over some of the students, and it would eventually become easier, but this never happened.

Racist attacks on the Little Rock Nine from other students continued throughout the year. Students would step on their heels until they bled, bring deadly weapons to injure them with, and one student even through bleach in Melba's eyes. Some students would make effigies of the students and hang them, then catch them on fire. After Minnijean was expelled, students would pass around cards that said "1 down, 8 to go."

One white student named Link would befriend Melba and warn her about planned attacks. He grew up with a nanny who was Black, and because of her, was not racist like the rest of the students.

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Education was an important aspect of Melba Pattillo Beals' life. 

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Education was an important aspect of Melba Pattillo Beals' life. 

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Melba grew up home schooled, although her grandmother did this mostly unintentionally. Her schooling began during a serious case of whooping cough, in which her grandmother kept her up learning how to read, write, add, and subtract. She used to sit on her father's lap practicing multiplication tables, and her mother used to have them complete book reports during the summer.
Her mother would be one of the first black people to attend University of Arkansas to receive her Master's Degree. She was a seventh grade English teacher.
Melba prided herself in being a star student, and tried to make good grades and her friend group consisted of other model students.

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Minnijean brown was one of Melba's closest friends in the Little Rock Nine. Many of her old friends inviting her out after she began integrating Central High School, she leaned heavily on Minnijean.

Unfortunately, Minnijean did not finish the year at Central. She was expelled after she was accused of calling a group of girls "White Trash," after they through a purse full of locks at her.

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The governor of Arkansas at the time tried everything to hinder integration. He sent the National Guard to stop the Little Rock Nine from entering Central High School. He claimed he was trying to keep the peace by keeping segregation, and tried to justify his stance by making it illegal for white students to attend Black Schools as well.

At the end of the Little Rock Nine's first year at Central, Faubus would clothes Arkansas schools for a year to hinder integration, and many other Southern states would join Arkansas.

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Melba had grown up near Central High School, and always dreamed of attending the school. It was well known nationally, and had advanced educational technology that her school didn't own.

One day after Brown v. Board of Education, Melba was given the opportunity to sign up to integrate Central High School. She signed up, and didn't bother telling her mother or grandmother because she began to believe that she would never integrate Central High. Then one night when watching television, they would find out she had been selected as on of the students to integrate Central High School.

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There was an unspoken rule that little children will allowed to play with children of different races, but only if other white families didn't see.

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There was an unspoken rule that little children will allowed to play with children of different races, but only if other white families didn't see.

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Sometimes Melba and Conrad would have to go with their Grandma India when she went to clean Miss Lisa's house. Melba and Conrad would play with her children while their grandmother cleaned. Miss Lisa told Melba and Conrad to refer to her children as "Sir" and "Ma'am" or "Miss" and "Mr." even though they were the same age.

One Saturday, Grandmother India had to bring them with her while she baked a cake and cleaned for a party Miss Lisa was throwing for her children, but Melba and Conrad were forced to sit in a cabinet. The cabinet was hot and they were in there so long, they both soiled their pants. Grandmother India felt terrible that she had left her grandchildren in there, but had to help support the family. Grandmother India eventually ended up leaving before the party was over after realizing how sick Melba and Conrad became, and Miss Lisa fired her.

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Melba grew up with a younger brother named Conrad, her Grandmother India, and her Mother Lois.

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Melba grew up with a younger brother named Conrad, her Grandmother India, and her Mother Lois.

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Her mother and Papa Will had divorced when Melba was a child, so she was primarily raised by her mother and grandmother.

Melba's mother was light skinned. Because of this, she sometimes received unwanted sexual advancements from white men, like the milk men, but because she was Black, she was not allowed to object these advancements.

Conrad was light skinned like their mother. Melba was darker like her father. People would sometimes comment that it was a "shame" that they didn't have the other's skin tone. This is a sentiment rooted in colorism that still exists today, in which it is seen as more masculine for Black men to be dark, and more feminine for Black women to be light skinned.

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Melba's grandmother always had her polish her saddle shoes before leaving the house and going shopping.

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Melba's grandmother always had her polish her saddle shoes before leaving the house and going shopping.

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But they would soon become dirty from all the times she had to step off the sidewalk to allow white people to walk by them. This is one of the many unwritten rules Melba would have to follow. It was not uncommon for Black people to be physically assaulted or even lynched for not listening to the white people's rules in the segregated South.

Some other rules Melba would have to follow is that she could not touch anything in the stores or try on clothes.

Even though there was also the fear of retaliation for refusing to comply to white people's rules, Melba always found herself testing the rules. One day she would use a white only bathroom on a trip to a department store, leading to a lengthy questioning with the police.

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Melba Pattillo Beals was born on Pearl Harbor Day: December 7, 1941

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Melba Pattillo Beals was born on Pearl Harbor Day: December 7, 1941

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The doctor used forceps to deliver her because she was too large for her mother to deliver on her own. The forceps injured her scalp which lead to an infection. Her mother had to take her to a white hospital that operated on her begrudgingly, but the nurses refused to "coddle" Melba because she was a Black child, and neglected to give her the necessary care of washing the wounds with Epsom salts. A janitor informed her mother one day about the epsom salts, and she went home and began cleaning the wounds herself. Melba Pattillo Beals would soon recover.