>> booktv is on twitter and facebook, and we want to hear from you. tweet us, twitter.com/booktv, or post a comment on our facebook page. facebook.com/booktv. >> it was 60 years ago this month that president eisenhower ordered federal troops to little rock, arkansas, to protect nine african-american students who were the first to integrate the city's central high school. one of the little rock nine -- melba pattillo beals -- appeared in 1994 on the c-span program "book notes" to discuss her book, "warriors don't cry." on the 60th anniversary, we're showing you that interview next on booktv. this program contains language that some may find offensive. c-span: melba pa teal owe -- pattillo beals, where does the title come from? >> guest: mother used to sing a

song, "i'm on the battlefield for my lord." so it comes from that, from her singing and also from the experience i had with the 101st airborne, the soldiers who were warriors who came down to guard us when i was going to school at central high. c-span: central high is where? >> guest: little rock, arkansas, central high. 1957, it was a major bastion of white segregation in the south, because it was ranked among the top high schools in the country. and it was where the elite children of little rock attended school. and it was, one believes, the last place they would have wanted to have black children come. and in order to stay there, get there, be there, president eisenhower indeed, ultimately, had to send soldiers, warriors. c-span: what year are we talking about? >> guest: 1957. september of 1957. we're really talking about that whole period because, you know, in 1954 brown v. the board of education said separate is not

equal and, thus, began this whole event of the south to integrate and not integrate. and this whole almost warring-like environment or atmosphere wherein most white people said, no, we're not going to integrate, we don't care what the supreme court said, and federal judges said, yes, you will integrate. everybody said, okay, how can we do it with as little as possible. how can we stingily integrate. and that's what they did in little rock, they stingily agreed to integrate. c-span: on the cover of your book is an a artist rendition of what? >> guest: this is the norman rockwell rendition of a small child being escorted to school by sheriffs, southern sheriffs, and it's kind of, i think, meant by him to be a generic essence of what was going on at the time; a small black girl with these very tall, white sheriffs escorting them into school.

c-span: is that you in the piece of art? >> guest: well, not really. i was quite a bit taller than that and quite a bit older than that child is there. but i think the picture tells the story. it's certainly not a picture that i in the beginning chose. but as i've gotten accustomed to it, i think it immediately tells you what this book is about. it's about this child's struggle to go to this school. unknowingly, to change what was going on at the time, the traditions of the time. c-span: set the scene for us. where were you in 1957? >> guest: in 1957, september, i had just come back from heaven. to me, heaven was cincinnati, ohio. i had just had my first trip out of the south, having realized that all of my day dreams were true, that there was a place where i could be free and i could breathe. there was a place where black folks ate in white folks' restaurants, and there was a place where a white man played

music to make my meal go down. and so i was, like, flying high in august of 1957. c-span: why had you gone to cincinnati? >> guest: just to visit relatives just as a happenstance. i had been embroiled or at least paying a lot of attention to what was going on, reading the newspaper constantly, every day. i was almost raped just immediately after the brown v. board of education decision had come to down, so i said i was going to read the newspaper because i wanted to know when the white men got angry, and sometimes i had to spend my own nickel for it. i was very aware that in little rock the topic of the moment was whether to integrate schools, where to integrate schools, how to do it with the least amount of black children involved. c-span: how old were you in '57? >> guest: 15. c-span: and you went to what school before central high school? >> guest: hartman, a very small high school, one story. we drove around, oddly enough, central high school a lot

because my mother was getting her master's degree, and it was like she was doing it at the university of arkansas. and that was kind of on a pathway, a sunday drive that we took past this grandiose, seven or six-story-high building like a castle, four blocks square, something quite beyond my imagination. i couldn't even imagine what was in all those rooms, but i knew i wanted to see it. c-span: and what was home like? where did you live in little rock, and how many folks did you live with? >> guest: 1121 cross street. i lived with my grandmother, india annette payton, who had been the main center of my life all of my life. my mother, lois pattillo, was a teacher. she had gotten, by that time, her master's degree, herself integrating the university of around classes in order -- the university of arkansas classes in order to do so.

not a big row over it, just talk talking about it. my little brother conrad lived with us, he was 9, 10, 11 at the time, and that's all. my parents at this point were doored. my father visited -- were divorced. my father visited on a regular basis. he was very hostile towards my mother's decision to allow me to go to central high school. c-span: by the way, what are you doing here in san francisco? >> guest: identify been here since i was 16, 17 years of age. when i left central high school, i came to the north, escaping the klan. got off a plane, was met in santa rosa by about 15 white people unknowingly, and i went to live with a white family, dr. and mrs. george mccabe, who still are mom and dad to me, who still live in, they live up in occidental, california, and they walked me over the bridge to adulthood. they brought me back the sanity and the love and the consciousness i needed to move on to another space in my life.

and they taught me the definition of equality not by what was in the dictionary, but by how they treated me. c-span: are you married? >> guest: divorced. have a daughter who is now living in los angeles, has graduated from ucla and is working on her acting career, sometimes works for me in my public relations business. c-span: did you go to college? >> guest: san francisco state university, columbia university for a graduate degree in broadcast journalism and film. worked for the public broadcasting station here first, kqed, on the famous newsroom where i cut my teeth on journalism with some of these very seasoned ladies and gentlemen and am very pleased with that backdrop to my life. c-span: why this book now? >> guest: took me a long time to cough it up. it was very difficult to write, very difficult to write. i always thought that one day someone would walk in, and there'd just be this large brown

puddle of tears, and it would be me, you know? it took therapy, it took focus, it took prayer to get it up, to talk about it, to remember it all, to be able the talk about it from a neutral pedestal. i did not want to write the book through any veil of hostility, but just to simply tell you my story and let you decide what you think about it. c-span: how'd you remember all this? >> guest: kept a diary. i write things down incessantly. i mean, i hear snatches of conversation on a bus or in a lobby, so i always have kept notes, scraps of paper or, in this case, a diary. i actually have a little pink diary with a little white girl on it with a ponytail which was one of my diaries given to me by my grandmother that locked. because i used to talk too much. grandmother -- you know, i used to say things like, you know, people are like clothes on a coat hanger, our souls are the coat hanger, and the clothes can be interchanged.

we're not our bodies, we're our souls. grandmother would say, shh, darling, write that down. don't tell everything. i was kind of psychic as a child, predicting at one point a cousin's death saying, oh, deborah's going to drown soon. grandma would say, write that down. that's how i started, because people thought i was a little strange. she would say write letters to god or write it down, because i would say, you know, wait a minute now, what's going on here? are the white folks going to be in charge forever? is it that we're going to be in charge, you know, come june to december, they're in charge now? how did this whole system get set up? you say everything's equal, you say god loves us all, grandma, what's going on, you know? and she'd say, shh, write a letter to god. so, hence, the whole -- the writing thing was an early thing in my life. c-span: back in september of 1957 how were you chosen to integrate central high school? >> guest: simple thing.

two years before, in 1955 just after the brown v. the board, teacher came through class, black class, all-black class and said which of you live near central high school and would like to go? i put my hand up. i was always a girl who would do anything once, and i was always curious as to what was inside that school. i put my hand up and i went away. you know, i didn't say anything to my parents about it, i just put my hand up, yeah, i'll go. sign here. and it wasn't until august when we were in cincinnati, ohio, of 1957 that news came up saying that these people were going to go, and the big row about the whole thing, and my dad called my mom and said, you know, they're talking about your kid, you know? as my grandmother said, all hades broke loose. c-span: how many were there? >> guest: originally there were 16, but we dwindled to 9 because people got frightened because of threats of violence. the circumstance that emerged as time went on. c-span: what's the first threat

of violence you can remember? >> guest: just hearing people say we're, we don't want these niggers in our school. hearing that kind of definitive statement and hearing what they were willing to do. the hearingness of the mood was, to me, the first thing that made the side of my heart hurt, made my feelings sad, made me want to cry. the thought that someone would kill me, the threat of killing, the actual feeling of physical violence was the first day we went to school. i went with my mom, and we were with -- we were supposed to meet the other eight children at a certain point, and there were some white ministers, etc. and we missed that point. we came up sort of behind a crowd that was directly across the street in front of central high school. and the whole crowd at this point was -- it was like going to a football game, you know, a big game and you herald all this

row -- heard all this row or rodeo, and we walked up behind this crowd trying to figure out what are they looking at? they were looking across the street and, of course, what they were looking at was my little friend elizabeth walking the gauntless, that famous picture that you see of her walking up and down in front of those troops, trying to get access to the sidewalk that would lead her to the front door of central high school. and we're watching her do this, and we're hearing the crowd yell, and we're watching what's going on, and it's like being on mars. our minds can't compute. we've never seen anything like this, never felt anything like this, never been in this mob setting, don't know why the police standing around in uniform -- don't police help? police help people, don't they? don't they stop violence? of course they do. they're going to help her any minute. but they weren't. troops -- the soldiers, they have guns. why do they have guns? why is she walking up towards them, and they're not helping her? c-span: here's the dedication to your book that you have in the front of the book, and you list the others.

are they all alive today? >> guest: yes, very much. some of them grandpas and grandmas, two of them -- as a result of this incident -- elected to go abroad and have never, ever lived in this country, minnijean brown in canada and betty in europe. married there, had their children there, etc. i've only seen them twice. c-span: still angry? >> guest: painful, not angry. in pain, in deep pain. i don't think either one of us -- we were all together. actually president clinton, then billy clinton to us, brought us together at the mansion where the previous governor had sat and planned our demise. i don't think angry, pain, pain. in deep pain. hurt, not angry, more now dealing with the pain of it all. c-span: go back again to the beginning. the first day.

>> guest: so we were watching elizabeth walk this gaunt met, and all of a sudden the men surrounding us say, well, wait a minute, we got us a nigger right here. and they're saying, nigger, go home. c-span: what age? >> guest: 15, is elizabeth. but the people that surround her are adults, older. some of them students, but most of them adults. the people surrounding us are adulted. some men in suits, some men in overalls, adult human beings behaving the way i've been taught no one behaves. screeching violent epitaphs, you know, just really cursing but saying mostly very ugly things. and at first your ear doesn't hear. your ear does not -- your mind can't make all this make sense because, you know, where are you? what's happening? what's going on? and then the people nearest to us said -- just as we were trying to figure out what we were going to do, mother said we're doing more harm by going across the street then, okay,

the police are going to intervene, but they didn't. but then the men around us started saying, hey, we don't have to worry, we've got us a nigger right here. c-span: who's president at the time? >> guest: eisenhower. c-span: and what's his attitude about all this? diswhrg he doesn't know yet, because this is the first monday we went. it strikes the first big effort in the south to integrate at this level, the first official, pronounced decision voted upon, agreed upon supposedly in the city effort, this is how we're going to do this. c-span: why little rock? >> guest: i think -- i have no idea why little rock, to tell you the truth. part of what made this so big, i believe, was the governor's defiance of federal law. c-span: did you ever meet him? >> guest: yeah, yeah. c-span: when? >> guest: quite a bit -- just after the incident at a distance. not, you know, this is the governor, these are the nine kind of thing.

not hello, how are you, look you in the eyeball kind of thing. more seeing than meeting. c-span: did you ever ask any of the people back then why they hated blacks so much? >> guest: many times, because they would say you don't have a right to go to school with our children. you're not good enough. we don't want you with our children. you stink, you're stupid. you know? you can't go -- you're here to wash our dishes, clean our kitchens. you can't go to school with our children. c-span: what was the rest of the country doing at that point? how many people in cincinnati knew about little rock then? >> guest: quite a few. we were getting letters, phone calls. it was beginning to be a national news event. and again at the end of that year, it would be voted the biggest, one of the top ten news events of the year. reporters, by the second time we went back to school, are en masse coming to little rock, just thousands of reporters from around the world, all sorts of places. and then our lives now are in some ways being dictated by

these events around us. after that first time i tried to go to central high school and then came home, had to come home, had to escape for our lives, had to run away from the men who were carrying the ropes to hang us, that was the first real time, real violence that somebody actually struck me, reached out at me, held a rope up, said what they were going to do with it. so -- c-span: why didn't they, by the way? >> guest: god, prayer, faith, running, running, running for my life. my mother running, my mother throwing the keys at me and saying you drive away, leave me here. my mother swearing for the first time, slapping me in the face saying get out of here. she'd just been teaching me to drive in the grocery store, so just faith, god. please, god, help me. c-span: mom still alive? >> guest: my mother is 83 years of age, still very much alive. just gave me a lecture this morning, am i going to church on sunday? let's see, the last letter she corrects in red and mailed it back to me. she's with the problem.

ma's still driving her little red car to church on sunday, still teaching her sunday school class -- c-span: where? >> guest: in little rock, arkansas. my brother, little conrad, was just appointed by the president as the first black u.s. marshal in the history of the south. conrad, who was the first black trooper, the first black trooper in the troopers that kept us out of that school. time changes things. c-span: did your mother and brother read your book? >> guest: yes. c-span: what's, what do you remember them reacting to? >> guest: well, my brother call me, and he had tears in his voice, and he said you really can write. you really can write. and i love you and i'm sorry. what a good book, i couldn't put it down. and my mother -- see, i always knew i had to write a book that both my mother and, were my grandmother alive, would approve of. and the process of writing this book as you see it was almost as difficult as attending central high school. the first publisher i had was kind of a caretaker, plantation

owner kind of guy, a southern, former southerner who wanted to take over the process and wanted to direct in a accordance with his lens or his vision where it should go. and i said always it must be told through the eyes of the child, never through the eyes of an adult who then puts the layers of judgment over what happened. i just wanted the incidents to stand alone uncommented upon, just this is what happened. c-span: when was the first, when'd you really get serious about doing this book? >> guest: oh, i was serious two years after i left central high. i was serious during the time i was there. i was taking notes, writing it down, because it was too big for me to handle. i couldn't tell everything that was happening. i could only tell god about it. c-span: but we're 37 years later. when in the modern time did you get -- >> guest: i have 12 drafts of it. c-span: 12? >> guest: minimally.

c-span: separately written? >> guest: yes. i have boxes of that book. c-span: when did you write the first one? >> guest: when i was 19. but before that, a collection of loose pages. c-span: when was the first time you took it to a publisher? >> guest: probably not until i was 37, 36. c-span: and what was the first reaction? >> guest: keep writing, this is good. yes, we're interested, we want this. do this, that or the other. you've got to spill -- the first time i sent this to an agent, my -- i have a friend, danielle steele, who introduced me to her agent, and her name is phyllis. we called her god. and she was very instrumental, phyllis was, in helping me along this pathway although she was not my agent ultimately when it was published. that was sandra dykstra. phyllis, the first time i wrote this book it was 380 pages long and only 70 pages were about the actual incident. and so phyllis said you're not really ready to spew this story yet. you must do some work. and, indeed, i went back into therapy, dealt with it, prayed about it. i had lived with this.

i had to get this up. it was like concrete in my gut, a solid concrete bolt of pain in my gut that i had to get up piece by piece. c-span: what kind of therapy? >> guest: all kinds of therapy, you know? going to the marin kinds of guru groups, going to a therapist, the whole thing. talking about it, trying to get it up, trying to be able to say how i felt, the pain of it. therapy of sitting with it, reading about it, reading most of it done personally in terms of reading, okay, what should this be like? and then the therapy of writing about it, just writing over and over again. this is what happened, writing down to the core of my dealings. then allowing them -- my feelings. then allowing them to come up. one morning i remember arising at 5 and crying from 5-12 and then being able to write. sitting in a room by myself, spent a lot of time by myself to write this book. almost a solid year by myself. didn't work, didn't -- supported by my daughter, actually.

i couldn't have done it without her to write the book. so it was a long time. a lot of dealing with myself in it, a lot of going to school to learn how to write, to get the craft down although i have a master's in broadcast journalism. there was a difference in the languaging. and so this took a lot of my energy and a lot of my time. c-span: where did you write it? >> guest: in san francisco. c-span: right here. >> guest: right here. c-span: in your home? >> guest: in my home. ultimately, the final draft was written in just a downstairs room of my home in sausalito. c-span: and finally, how did this particular publisher, pocketbooks? >> guest: pocketbooks. c-span: decide to do this? >> guest: i was having difficulty with my first publisher, great difficulty, and i wanted out. originally there had been a bid for the manuscript. it was a big thing in my life. it was now this thing is written, it's wonderful. my agent, sandra dykstra, had put pit up for bid, and several major or publishers bid on it. one publisher got it and then --

it was the southern gentleman i told you about -- then wanted to redirect it, wanted to recarve it, wanted to say, no, i don't want it written like this. i want you to go back and write it from the perspective of an adult. i had a stomach ache for a year because i was hell bent on writing it in the voice that i had begun it in. finally when that contract didn't work out, pocketbooks had been one of the early bidders on the book. and my agent went back to pocketbooks and fortunately, i ran into an editor whose name was julie rubenstein who would become my angel in that she never once said to me this is what i want, this is what you have to do. she would say to me consider this or do you really want this or so and so. but she was to hold my hand along my own path. she did not lead me to a separate path. c-span: when did it first get into the bookstores? >> guest: may of this year.

c-span: how's it doing? >> guest: very well. it will be condensed by reader's digest in january. it will become a youth edition in january. disney is looking at it as a movie. c-span: and what has been the reaction of people that you talk to when you go around? have you traveled, have you done the tour? >> guest: i have, yes, i've done the tour. it's been e nor mousily roadway -- enormously rewarding when people say i couldn't put your book down or your book has inspired me or i'm in a lot of pain. one woman, 70 years of age, called me up and said, you know, i don't believe in god and i didn't believe in prayer, but now i pray every day, and life is better for me. so those kinds of things. lots of black children saying i've read this book, and i thought my life was hard, but it was not hard considering what you've been through. i think i'll do better. enormously rewarding. most everybody who's come to me, called me or written me has said i've got to do better.

lots of prisoners. lots of letters from prison from people saying, you know, ouch. i thought that what happened to me in my life justified my doing what i've done, but you suffered so much more than i did, and you're not negative. and so that, that has been really rewarding for me, is that people have gleaned the good in the book. the book i always wanted to be about the resurrection, not the crucifixion. c-span: back to '57. leading up to the day you went into central high school, i remember you writing about phone calls you would get at home. >> guest: terrific phone calls, all night. my grandmother would spew bible verses to -- they'd call up, and my grandmother would say does your mother hear you say this? does your god know you're speaking this way? c-span: what would they say? >> guest: we're going to bomb your house. c-span: who was calling me? >> guest: white people who didn't want me to go to school, segregationists, by this time organizing, beginning to have

regular rallies that we heard about, written about the in the paper, invitations to rallies appeared in the paper saying we don't want this integration, we're going to get you together, we're going to keep this from happening. one of my colleagues was going to school, they found a bomb, it went off underneath her house. we were now beginning to experience some of the threats of violence, you know, cast against us. so we knew they weren't kidding. they were traveling the streets of little rock beating up black people for no reason. so by now we were, i was sequestered in my house, couldn't go anywhere, copp play records, couldn't go be with my friends, couldn't do any of the things i'd ever done before. c-span: who's link? >> guest: link was a boy in school who, that is not his real name. i was recently honored by a major talk show -- the end of the world if i were to say his real name. he is from an aristocratic southern family, segregationist

family, a white boy who crossed the line who saved my life, who helped me when i was in school and became a friend. c-span: do you know where he is now? >> guest: yes. c-span: why did you not name him? >> guest: he is still a member of the aristocratic, southern segregationist family. he has a mother and a father and children and a wife. c-span: and when was the first time you met him? >> guest: in central high school. he was a student, a senior. just by accident i was standing outside of the wrong side of the building. see, envision that this school -- one of the things interesting, i just went there with a group of children from the magic bus, and one of the things that was astounding to them was envision that this school is two blocks long. c-span: those watching herald the magic bus, that's doug brinkley's bus? he's been a guest. >> guest: great. that's a bunch of kids who travel around the country and study by actually doing. it's an action class x. one of the things that astounded these children was that the school is so big. and so one of the physicalities,

one of the physical problems of attending central high school was not only that we were 9 among 2500, it's that the school was all these seven stories high and two blocks long whereas little black kids, they are lost in the caverns of this massive school. so you had to keep yourself together. and so one day, i think it was in march, i went out the wrong door. i was supposed to meet the folks at the other end. i went out the wrong door -- c-span: march of '58? >> guest: '58. i was standing out there, and it was snowing, it had been snowing. it was cold, very cold friday. and i was just tired, just numb, just absolutely jaded with this whole experience and living in a deal world, keeping any arms closed trying to find some semblance of -- c-span: there's still just nine black children? >> guest: by now there's eight. one's kicked out for the -- [inaudible] event. c-span: which is what? >> guest: well, just before

christmas of 1957 we were in the cafeteria, and my colleague minnijean brown loves chili. and she had been knocked around terrifically. little by little, her hope had been depleted. she had such hope that she could sing on stage. we all had this hope. you know, i wear the right dresses, i comb my hair, i read, i'm cute, i sing, they'll like me soon. and we all had this hope. and if you didn't translate that into the action of a warrior, if you didn't translate that into i'm going to protect myself, you'd die there. and minnijean seemed not to make the translation. she seemed to keep having the hope, and so she was battered a lot more. and in early december just before we were to leave to go home for christmas vacation, she was in line getting her chili. we were trying to pretend it was normal, it's okay. we're in this cafeteria, and there's hundreds of white students in there, and we've got our little place in the back of the room, and there are adults outside, a few guards guarding

us still. but she comes down this line, she's got her soup on the tray, and she's walking back towards her seat, and we see her far in the distance because this calf cafeteria's half the size of a football field. and we see her far away in the distance stopped, and we see boys on either side of her seated but still jostling her. we see them jostling back and fort, and we see her -- back and forth, and we see her talking and, you know, i'm shaking my head. she was one of my dearest friends at the time. and we're thinking, oh, my god, there's only four of us there. if we get in trouble, we know we'd be killed -- we'd been told if one of us gets trapped anywhere, don't go after that person. don't help that person. so minnijean is trapped, i can't go get her, i can't helper, ernie -- c-span: ernie? >> guest: earnest green, one of the other nine. we see this chili come off her tray and go down this other kid, you know, just grease. and the black cooks behind the

counter, there's dead silence. and i'm thinking, that's it, i'm going to die right here today because there's too many of them, too few of us. i look around, and there's no adults there, and what are we going to do? we got out of there, we got minnijean out of there. that one incident would lead to a series of incidents, you know? one down and eight to go. by then, by her response whether by accident or on purpose, she now showed a vulnerability. and the segregationists realized the way to get these kids out of here is to provoke them, make them do something. so her leaving, her having to leave set us up with a real dilemma. but so by the time i met link, she was already gone -- c-span: where'd she go, by the way? >> guest: she went to new york, to a school -- dr. kenneth clark invited her, the black psychologist who had been instrumental in the brown

decision, invited her to come to his home to go to a high school call newlin con. .. does it to her >> >> and i write a lot about my own personal bodyguard. the original manuscript said

ayatollah by another that was your that probably he probably died later in vietnam i don't want to put him in jeopardy the when they put acid in my eye to talk to me about my posture. >> how do they put acid in your eyes?. >> it was so astounding because the page so overwhelming i didn't know what to do he just grabbed my wrist to gm my head under the water fountain and i was screaming in pain i couldn't thing for do anything. finally the doctor said he just kept washing and

washing it and said shut up and stay here. so i owe this man a lot. >>cspan: what was his assignment? when we do pick him up or picked you up?. >> he would be trailed me then you have personal bodyguards but he was like the one closest to me. >>cspan: what was it like in the classroom?. >> a living hell. maybe they've a delano's loan back -- a piece of notepaper in your lap most of the teachers then they were harassed by those segregationist there was one teacher the tiniest little thing that allowed no

messing around she would say. if you touch her you go to the office. that was the oasis in my life. to become the liaison that benevolent existence they were as benevolent as they could be. >> how were your grades?. >> they were fair. >>cspan: did you get a sense of discrimination?. >> no question. my mother always said i love my mother but no matter what was going on to say no question but that quality of

my work disintegrated but even at my worst was still a very good student we had trying circumstances we had tremendous problems that one teacher would fail me for no reason. >>host: link?. >> a white boy by accident said i was standing in the wrong place and earlier a couple of parents so to go well the wrong place and i was standing at the of wrong place and lincoln was nearby in chasing me throughout that year threatening me with a knife and threatening

me to kill me was approaching the with the gay and and just want to be the whole year and in and commit to meet i was looking around frantically but i could not get back to school. so wink said no but take the keys to my car and get out of here. and i about what is he doing ? letter read talking but he said not kidding take my car. i will call you i will get it later. so he saved my life that day i took the car and my grandma watched -- rushed out but are you out of your mind? so he did to save my life and would become a friend and colleague and allied the rest of the year.

>> we would write notes to each other and talk to each other on the phone. >> you did not trust him?. >> no not at all progress that he would get me we knew that white kids were trained to taunt us it is is like people walking on my heels. >>cspan: how do they walk?. >> just behind you all day. it was incredible is lycopene you cannot escape. so i thought did he do this? he told me who his parents were and they were involved in the segregation effort and his father had grown up with the black nanny more or less.

>>cspan: now was a lot. >> guest: yes because that is why he could be open because he really loved this woman who had raised a second generation of his family and was now far about with no social security or hospitalization and know nothing you are sick so leave and go home and link would take her money and food from his allowance. so he took me to visit her because he wanted me to get a black doctor to go see her i did it and got my grandmother involved and she died the day he graduated. >>cspan: this is a little bit out but eventually you meet a man and very but he is white. >> guest: that's right. he had on the uniform of my

husband's, he was a soldier or part of it that it was so comfortable and get him in san francisco to lead by my sarah get panicked -- parents so now those blue eyes and red hair was my dad george. food took me to school he took me swimming with family holidays the offer say i went to school they said i am here for my kid. so now closest to my a own father i have never had. but he died a number of

years ago but george would become a real parent in my life so when my husband comes into my life totally new people are. for those that happen to be white. >>cspan: did you graduate from barack?. >> guest: no. i think jeff did but after that your the school was closed i spent the year at home waiting for the school to open again. >>cspan: how did he get the justification. >> guest: he just did it. he did it need a justification he just closed

all of the schools so now in our own community we are a pariah because our own community the life was being choked out of us all the businesses closed down and you were castigated so by then the black people were suffering so badly. >>cspan: so when did you go to santa rosa?. >> guest: my a uncle passes as white we heard the kkk had $10,000 on our head. >>cspan: you don't mean the kkk?. >> guest: yes.

he was passive as a share of city called up my mother and said bebel's given her live get her out of their. so my mother was to keep me there and continue to live my life but he said no get her out of their. by then the naacp were soliciting safe homes for us because segregationist to do whatever it took they would have no more integration they would do what they needed and they were care about -- clear about that so i got a plane and came here and i bet all of these white people i said this is the clean and they will take me away. they gave me a place to live

part of the naacp. so it is a funny story. >>cspan: was the connection two's santa rosa?. >> guest: they sponsored my coming here naacp. they said we are here so i am thinking to myself i have never seen this. i am 17. but eventually they would take me to live with george and carol and i was welcomed into their family with four other children and i was welcomed as another child and treated with the equality you could not explain on paper so their actions is what healed my wound. >>cspan: will hold three when you got married?. >> guest: 20.

in san francisco and was married seven years. >>cspan: at some point it comes that you married a white man?. >> guest: he said why couldn't i go out with them? he was leaving for college. he said that clan hehs 10,000 dead 5,000 of live on your head in the city were out of your mind i don't date white men. get out of here. up until that he was my friend so i knew the last time i saw him i would never see him again but that he continue to call me when i came here and then when i got married he said wow would even go well with me the value very a white man? he was carrying three about

that. >>cspan: did you ever have a conversation with the white students that were hot style to you?. >> not really. there was a woman i remember smiling at me she would talk how she was beat up with rocks but in the beginning some children tried to reach out that as time progressed they were beat up or treated for any advances or attempted dave made to be fran does. i do have an acquaintance who is writing a book about the anchor and will say be careful because feelings are the same we would do it again. and she would always warned me when you go to little rock. but have gone there to sign books most people say

mon-khmer they'd just say tell me who link is or they talk to be very friendly it is a friendly place their very talkative and chitchat my brother has remained there so i go back quite frequently. >>cspan: what is this all about? what is the reason the white person that they have this attitude?. >> guest: i believe it is that an unwillingness that if i don't know you and if your of who they are so are we talk about financial threats? unwillingness to share the wealth release of segregation and integration are words we don't want to share what we have got.

so the crips and the bloods exist with this whole violent thing is due to the unwillingness to bring people into the mainstream. and that third grader who felt not accepted so i don't have to share with you. because that i don't have to include you so it is a big umbrella of where their heart is not the you are human your eyes are blue in mind are not but to see that you could be something other than what i am. it is spiritual. >>cspan: where do you put a race relations that today?. >> guest: i am sad we have not come for other and i am torn because i like to look at the glass half full i rode the back of the bus so

i will not complain of those privileges that i have here i did not have before so wiry even discussing this wises school in florida talking about segregate where black people saying they will segregate? to say that this is the then an issue it is problematic but would solve other issues in the world. i need everybody mib the guy at the corner where the aged who will show me how to survive the will take my hand so for me i don't see it as working unless we get this figure out. >>cspan: what is your essential business?. >> guest: public-relations and writing i still get a

little kick of helping people start businesses. >>cspan: day you go back to little rock what is the population mix?. >> 60% but in terms of games and violence it is heartbreaking but a variety people are just shooting and was part by the fact their children around me it was gorgeous it was a rainbow of humanity holding my hand talking to me. >>cspan: when the kids talk to you what do they ask?. >> guest: they cannot envision discussions that went on in the hallway and cannot imagine the harshness .

they ask how did we look through it? why were the children so they agree? that human perception that one human being could keep -- treated other like we were treated it takes a while every day you think he will hit me then if this comes and say he did so it takes awhile to realize that this will happen to you in this violence will go once they don't realize it is hard for them to believe and understand. >>cspan: that incident with a gun?. >> guest: my easter dress. so they would spray you if they walked toward you if i could survive it the

complete got my a dress with a pink or aids every imaginable and would get me with eggs or eggs. but it was a blessing. what was it? who smiled at you? what did you learn?. >>cspan: to of the original are living in another country? canada and the netherlands. did you ever talk about coming back?. >> guest: they don't want to. they wanted to escape of what we endured. totally different rules where they are. they have white children married white with then white communities than the judgment is different where she lives in the netherlands

is education and money and she can meet that criteria. and has a publishing company but here it would take a girl lot longer. >>cspan: anybody else tried to write a book?. >> guest: i am the only one so far. is very difficult. the other is a psychologist but it is very difficult. but when i hold that book in my hand a large copy of the cover is on my wall i cannot tell you what it meant to me because the pain is in the book i can talk about it i can leave it and walk away. >>cspan: did you have to leave anything out?. >> guest: yes. it was senator pages long. [laughter] it because the editor

thought the extent of violence would turn people off. >>cspan: where the chances there will be a movie?. >> guest: people are bidding on that right now. it looks as though we will be signing a contract. >>cspan: what do you want the movie to show? the humanness of my family that black people are real people not to cardboard characters to be inspired and understand the enormity of another human being and the context to assume that if you ever have the right so

that is why wanted to write this book people would understand why it is wrong. >>cspan: where the leaders he most respected during that period?. >> guest: marshall of course, a man who came down south he would live it and breathe it and told us it would be okay for a program to was another attorney a local woman supported us in always taking the brunt of the pain and then to sustain himself somehow and then we almost lost our foothold so how painful? i am not

certain i can drop off my kids. i think to myself that is crazy. >> your mother used a local newspaper?. >> she was the forerunner of my a puerto rico company. and had to let people know the fact she was being fired and threatened and her job was taken away. >>cspan: how long did you work for nbc?. >> guest: seven years. street reporter. >>cspan: why did you leave?. >> was offered another job i had a baby, i a daughter who was growing up without me

being present that i needed to be with my daughter and i needed to be with her as a single parent so why started a business from home so i knew i had to reconfigure my life i am very grateful and news reporter took me from a little girl at little rock making me the adults that i am today it was a laboratory and i am so grateful for that period for what was new or understood. >>cspan: here is the cover of the book "warriors don't cry" melba pattillo beals thanks for joining us. >> my pleasure