Welcome to Literature Group #3's posting area. In the "post comment" section directly below this post please do the following:
1) Choose a passage to post.
2) Write your passage.
3) Write two questions to share with your literature group to prompt an online discussion in relation to your passage.
4) Write two "ahas"--surprises or new knowledge
5) Read each others postings (passage, questions, and "ahas").
6) Respond to the members of your groups postings.
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ReplyDeleteGOVERNMENT MAY TRY FOR AN INJUCTION AGAINST FAUBUS
ReplyDelete- Arkansas Gazette, Saturday, September 7, 1957
Governor Faubus had written a long telegram to President Eisenhower, asking for understanding and support. He was also complaining that he had not had his day in court to show that he had been forced to call out the National Guard to prevent integration because the threat of violence was so great.
I spent Saturday morning worrying that Eisenhower would take Faubus’s side and school integration would be swept beneath some carpet for my grandchildren to retrieve. Between my dish-washing, reading the homework assignments Mother gave me, and answering hate phone calls, I managed to restyle my hair, and try on everything in my closet, searching for a proper disguise. I was consumed with only one thought: Grandma, the wrestling matches, and my sneak date with Vince. I worried about leaving Mother Lois and Conrad home alone at night; maybe the shooter would come again.
79-80
1. In every small town there is always a family that sweeps all their ‘dirty laundry under the carpet’. Could you imagine sweeping school integration beneath the carpet... What would the world be like if President Eisenhower would have sided with Faubus?
2. “Between my dish-washing, reading the homework assignments..., and answering hate phone calls, I managed to restyle my hair, and try on everything in my closet...”
While reading that sentence I felt like I was reading my own daily to-do’s except for answering hate phone calls. Answering hate phone calls was just thrown into the middle of Melba’s daily to-do’s.
What would you put in the middle of your daily to-do’s that you deal with to compare to Melba answering hate phone calls?
Cadi: Between my dish-washing, prepping lesson plans, and dealing with the Stillwater Bridge, I manage to restyle my hair and try on everything in my closet.
*Note: I know the Stillwater Bridge is not even comparable to answering hate phone calls daily, it was just the closest I could get to relate on a daily basis.
Cadi, you know I think in some ways it was swept und the carpet! That is the amazing thing. Now, granted, this happened before I was born, but I don't know anybody who knows much about this. This was like a significant and lengthy battle in the war of civil rights that took place in our country. Yet, I only recall the most momentary glance at it in my school textbook as a teenager. And everyone I ask about it who is older than I am only vaguely recalls remembering hear talk of it at the time.
ReplyDeleteIn regard to your question about our day-to-day activity in comparison to Melba's I can tell you this: this makes me extremely grateful for my ease of life, and indebted to such people as Melba who sacrifice their comfort for the benefit of others.
I agree with you Christine, about nobody knowing much about this significant story that happened not that long ago. This truly makes me think as well that it was swept under the carpet and now has slowly been getting cleaned up.
DeleteTo answer your question about our day-to-day activity and relating it to Melba's life, I have no idea what to tell you...I'm truly blessed and this memoir sure makes you think about your life and how lucky you are to have what you have.
“What’s it like to be back here again?” another reporter asks.
ReplyDelete“Frightening,” one voice says. Most of us have rarely come back to Arkansas as adults. Even though my mother and brother continue to live here, I have only found the strength to visit five times in thirty years because of the uneasy feeling the city gives me.
It took 30 years for Melba to visit that school again. I understand the reasons behind that, but this story needed to be told long before. Why did she wait 40 years after these events to publish this book?
Did you have difficulty finding this book? I could not find it through the MORE library system or any of the libraries in our district or the districts we share with. It’s exceptional and I find that troubling. Why do you think this is so? Would you be willing to donate this book to a local library?
Aha – When Link brought Melba to see his Nana, I was surprised to learn how confusingly stupid was this great gulf between people of different skin colors. First, for the fact that she was essentially his grandmother – she raised him and he loved her as his own family – but his parents sent her away as if they were setting out the trash. They wouldn’t have treated their dog like that! Second, Nana became angry at Link for developing a friendship with someone her same color – it was that dangerous! Third, Link could not even seek a black doctor’s help for another black person? One last thought: the name Nana means “princess” in the language spoken in Ghana – I had a roommate from Ghana who told me that’s what her name meant. I thought that was fitting, given the way Melba described Nana.
In responds to your first question, I have a feeling she probably blocked it out of her memory so she could move on with her life. It might have taken sometimes for her to face all of the scary and horrible memories that she lived. When you’re writing about something, your thinking about what you're writing, and maybe she wasn't ready to relive all of those hatred memories.
DeleteIn regards of finding Warriors Don't Cry, I did end up finding this book through the MORE library system. I found it by searching it by the author. If I were to own this book, I would totally donate this story to the library, this story needs to be heard!
"Dignity is a state of mind, just like freedom. These are both precious gifts from God that no one can take away unless you allow them too." Pg. 242
ReplyDeleteWhat does dignity and freedom mean to you? What do you think it means for Melba and the other 8 Little Rock students?
How far does your faith take you until you give up and you can't take the beating and hatred of others anymore?
Aha moments:
First thought: Throughout the whole book I kept thinking about how amazing a person can be to keep going after they have been beaten down by others so many times. To continue to have an on going faith through all the terrible things Melba and the 8 other students went through. I loved how Melba always referred back to her grandmother’s strength and the bible versus that she had taught Melba.
Another thought: I couldn't imagine being a teacher or administrator at Center High and to pretend like you didn't see anything that was happening to the 9 Little Rock students. I think I would be fired; I wouldn’t be able to handle not innerving.
Did you have difficulty finding this book? Why do you think this is so? Would you be willing to donate this book to a local library?
ReplyDeleteI found my book on Amazon and I did not have difficulty... I wonder why it was hard to find this book.. I would donate this book in a heart beat.
What does dignity and freedom mean to you? What do you think it means for Melba and the other 8 Little Rock students?
How far does your faith take you until you give up and you can't take the beating and hatred of others anymore?
In high school I experienced being bullied to the point where I would go to school late or not go to certain classes so I would not have to be put in a situation with certain people. While being bullied I would see other students in the same situation as me so I would stick up for them and then the bullies attention would be put on me. Knowing the other students were no longer dealing with what I had to deal with made me a stronger person from it. I continue to be a strong advocate for children not having to be put in any situation like I have been in.
Even though I have been through that I could not imagine what the 8 Little Rock Students went through but I am sure their faith, family and friends played a huge role in their experience. My faith took me far during hard times in high school but it also took my great family to help me thru those tough times.
Hi everyone! Sorry, I was so worried about getting my video uploaded, I forgot about our literature circle discussion.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, here are my thoughts: "my grandmother India always said God had pointed a finger at our family, asking for just a bit more discipline, more praying, and more hard work because He had blessed us with good health and good brains. ...fifteen years later, when I was selected to integrate Central High, Grandmother said, "Now you see, that's the reason God spared your life. You're supposed to carry this banner for our people."
What a powerful thought for a grandmother to share with a teenager. Can you imagine having that strength and positive thought during such an evil time in our society? It would be easy to breakdown and cry with these young people as they head off to "battle" each day but this grandmother, India, tried to find the good and the strength in every step the Little Rock Nine took and the battle they were "winning" each time they entered that school.
It makes me wonder what Melba's response might have been to her grandmother?
"The weatherman says it's going to be 85 and up this afternoon. I'll regret wearing my cotton blouse and quilted skirt, but they're new and pretty. I want to look just right so the governor will know who I really am." -what an Ahha moment for me reading this passage. Such a simple teenager-type thought, to worry about looking "pretty" instead of worrying about what she might say to the governor. It was a moment that I could relate to Melba as I read her story. It made her seem so innocent and "normal," as if the issue of integration wasn't the issue at all at the time.
"...I decided I would begin to mark off my days at Central High on the big wall calendar that belonged to Grandma...Lord, please let me be strong enough to fill in this day and all the school days to follow, I whispered." Ah, what a chill I get thinking about the pain she must have felt inside herself, just to physically be at school each day. I can compare this to my freshman year of college. My roommate was quite a bully and made my life miserable in more ways than one. By October, I was crying to come home, quit school, and be a babysitter for the rest of my life :). My parents were tough, making me go back to school weekend after weekend, knowing that it would all be worthy it in the end. I crossed out each school day in a thick red marker, impatiently waiting for the end. Thank goodness my parents didn't give up on me, making me continue to attend college. I'm a better person for that experience as is Melba for her experience. How difficult it must have been for her mother and grandmother to send her to school everyday, knowing their lives (and hers) were being threatened and that Melba was physically ill by the thought of going back to high school. That takes an incredible amount of strength and courage...I wonder if most of us would have that amount of courage and bravery, faced with the same type of overwhelming fear?
"...is to cope with our interdependence-to see ourselves reflected in every other human being and to respect and honor our differences." Wow, after all that she has been through, Melba is able to send such a powerful message to society. You know, I look at the students in my classroom each and every day, who deal with things I cannot even begin to understand or comprehend. They have the power to be like Melba Beals and change the way our society functions. Do they have the same discipline, courage, and bravery she had inside herself? Do they have someone like her grandmother to stand by and support the efforts of change? What a wonderful world this could be if everyone had the same support and love that Melba Beals had to change the world.