Melba Pattillo Beals is an American journalist and member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African American students who integrated Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. Beals was born in 1941 to Lois Marie Pattillo, Ph.D., of the first Black graduates of the University of Arkansas, and Howell Pattillo, a Missouri Pacific Railroad worker. Beals' family valued education; when she realized she was not receiving the same quality education as her white peers, Beals, aged 15, volunteered to integrate Little Rock's white high school, despite constant harassment, threats of racial violence, and even a National Guard blockade ordered by Arkansas governor, Orval Faubus. Faubus later...
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