How long does it take to read Warriors Don't Cry?
Melba Pattillo Beals
Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals takes about 4 hours 56 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 4 hours 56 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1995. 269 pages, about 73,975 words.
10 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 8 hours 13 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 4 hours 56 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 5 minutes |
The page count is the median across 8 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
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 friend 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-living grandmother, Melba survived. "Dignity," said Grandmother India, "is a state of mind, just like freedom." 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. --Publisher
Subjects: School integration, Brown v. Board of Education, African American students, Central High School (Little Rock, Ark.), Biography, History
