White is a State of Mind

by Melba Pattillo Beals

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After reading Melba Patillo's memoir of the integration of Little Rock's Central High School, I wanted to know more details about what happened next.  Instead of letting the black teenagers have a second year in Central High, the governor closed the high schools.  This lead to increasing anger towards the families that were involved in the integration from both white and black families.  Melba finally had to flee the state when a bounty was placed on her by Klan members.

Let's talk about how she found out about this.  Her mother had a cousin who was passing as white.  That wasn't that unusual at the time.  In fact, she had several relatives passing.  But this man was not only married to an unsuspecting white woman and had kids who thought they were all white, he was the sheriff of a small southern town and the head of the local KKK.  You read that right.  A black man was head of the local KKK.  He found out about the bounty on his little cousin and called the family to alert them (presumably before putting the word out to his members).  I want to know more about this.  I want a whole book about him and then I want that book turned into a miniseries.  Somebody make that happen.

She is taken to a safe house in California.  The NAACP there was mostly made up of white liberals.  It gets cringey.  They want so badly to be helpful but they can't understand why she was terrified.  She came from an environment where she was only safe with (some) black people and now she is surrounded by white people.  It was complete culture shock for her.

She came from a world where survival consumed everyone's thoughts.  She had never had the experience of planning to go do something just because it might be fun.  She couldn't relate to teenagers with seemingly trivial concerns.  On the other hand, once she saw that a better life was possible, she couldn't fit in with the survival mentality in Little Rock.  She also had to face discrimination from black people in California who looked down on her for being southern.  

She didn't have an easy life but learned gradually to stand up for herself.  This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story