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Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
NAACP Quotes in Warriors Don’t Cry
The Warriors Don’t Cry quotes below are all either spoken by NAACP or refer to NAACP. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 11
Quotes
Later in The New York Times, Sammy Dean Parker and Kaye Bacon said that as a result of the meeting they now had a new attitude. One headline in the Gazette read: “Two Pupils Tell of Change in Attitude on Segregation.” Sammy Dean Parker was quoted as saying, “The Negro Students don’t want to go to school with us any more than we want to go with them. If you really talk with them, you see their side of it. I think the NAACP is paying them to go.” When I read her statement, I realized Sammy hadn’t understood at all our reason for attending Central High. I wondered where on earth she thought there was enough money to pay for such brutal days as I was enduring [….] What price could anyone set for the joy and laughter and peace of mind I had given up?
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When Mrs. Bates asked, “Do you kids want white meat or dark meat?” I spoke without thinking: “This is an integrated turkey.” The annoyed expression on her face matched the one on Mother’s, letting me know that maybe I should have prepared a speech. The reporters began snickering as they posed a series of questions on turkeys and integration, calling on me by name to answer. My palms began sweating, and my mouth turned dry. I hadn’t meant to put my foot in my mouth. I didn’t want the others to think I was trying to steal the spotlight, but once I had spoken out of turn, “integrated turkey” became the theme. “You’ll live to regret that statement, Melba,” Mother said as we were driving home. I knew she was agonizing over the consequences of my frivolity. She was right. I would suffer.
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NAACP Term Timeline in Warriors Don’t Cry
The timeline below shows where the term NAACP appears in Warriors Don’t Cry. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...She follows news of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in December 1955. The following year, the NAACP files suit to make integration begin immediately, despite overwhelming disfavor in Arkansas and Governor Orval...
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Chapter 3
...attending a series of meetings with officials in Little Rock’s education system and in the NAACP. She meets Daisy Bates for the first time, a woman who strikes Melba as “very...
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The NAACP calls to let Melba and the other members of the Little Rock Nine know that...
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Chapter 5
...Bates’s house to meet with the press. Numerous “very dignified and important-looking men” from the NAACP sit in her living room, including Thurgood Marshall whom Melba recognizes from the newspaper reports...
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Chapter 6
The only place that will serve the Little Rock Nine and the members of the NAACP is “a greasy joint” in a “shabby section” of Little Rock. Thurgood Marshall sits with...
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Chapter 7
...at Daisy Bates’s house. The Little Rock Nine are split between two cars driven by NAACP officials. They cannot take the usual route to Central due to police warnings that segregationists...
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...Pattillo family watches Governor Faubus deliver a statement from his Sea Island, Georgia retreat, urging NAACP leaders and school officials to allow a “cooling-off period” before resuming integration. In response, President...
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Chapter 11
...do not want to go to school with them but are being paid by the NAACP, a comment which strikes Melba as absurd.
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Chapter 14
...stay in her office. The students also have more meetings with Daisy Bates and the NAACP to discuss their problems.
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Minnijean is officially expelled after a forty-minute hearing. NAACP officials arrange for her to attend a private New York high school called New Lincoln...
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Chapter 18
...they stay in suites at luxurious hotels and meet celebrities. In Cleveland, they receive the NAACP’s highest honor, the Spingarn Medal.
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...Rock’s request to halt integration, delaying it for another three and a half years. The NAACP begins another round of appeals to get the remaining seven students back into Central. By...
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...families with a child at Central move out of Little Rock due to mounting pressure. NAACP officials send an announcement to chapters across the country to find families who will provide...
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It is not until September 1960 that the NAACP succeeds in getting Central to integrate once again. Only two black students are permitted entry—Carlotta...
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