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David House
Honors English, 4B
Final Compare/Contrast Paper
January 14, 2014
Black Warriors in
Black Boy and Warriors Don’t Cry
Imagine being the one kid in a class that always gets picked on, being that one kid who
doesn’t belong. That’s how Richard Wright, a black writer in the 1940s, and Melba Beals, one of
the nine children who helped integrate Central High School, felt. They were the outsiders where
they lived, and they wrote about their experiences in their autobiographical book. Richard wrote
Black Boy, the story of how he grew up and his experiences, and Melba wrote Warriors Don’t
Cry, a story about her life during the integration of Central High School. Black Boy and Warriors
Don’t Cry portray a similar message, but contrast each other based on the setting, their life style,
and how they wrote about their experiences.
Black Boy was based off of Richard’s experiences from roughly 1912-1937. Most of the
book is primarily in Jackson, Mississippi, but he tends to move around quite often. As Richard
gets older it gets harder to live because of racial tensions and the Great Depression. World War 1
has just ended and all the vets have come home. Richard has a hard time getting a decent job in
the South, but has the same difficulty finding a good one in the North because of his experiences
with the White’s in the South.
Similarly to Black Boy, Warriors Don’t Cry takes place primarily in the south but this
time in Little Rock, Arkansas, but she spends some time in Ohio and California. The book is
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mostly about Melba’s experiences while the integration of Central High School was taking place.
The Brown vs. Board of Education case had declared that state laws separating the black and
white students was unconstitutional and against the law. Unlike Black Boy, the book had taken
place from about 1957-1961 and the racial tensions were higher and African Americans were not
respected in any way.
Richard’s lifestyle consisted of a divorced, religious family. His Grandmother would try
to force him to pray that he might find God. He did not believe in God and believed in the
science world. When his school teacher, Ella, tells Richard the story of Bluebeard and His Seven
Wives, it gets him even more interested in literature and persuades him to write his own short
story he entitled ”The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre”.
Melba also had a very religious lifestyle, but unlike Richard, she believed in her religion
and loved it. Melba also holds the same goal as Richard of one day becoming a writer. Melba’s
parents also got a divorce, but she holds together with her Mother. She moves up to Ohio with
her Uncle for a while, but had to move back to Little Rock because she was one of the nine
children who were chosen to integrate Central High School. At home Melba holds a strong
relationship with her mother, despite the fact that because of Melba being at Central High gets a
lot of people tormenting them.
Richard wrote Black Boy to try and criticize people who tried to take advantage of
African Americans. He also showed how different it was in the North compared to the South.
Even though he had just as much struggle in both places, he showed that whites in the North
were more willing to help out, like some of his jobs in the North where he quit on his own guilt.
With showing the differences he wanted to change people’s look on African Americans, while
giving them insight of what it was like for him to live during that time period.
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Similarly to Richard, Melba’s autobiographical book was meant to criticize people who
wanted to take advantage of African American’s, yet, trying to put across the information of
integration and segregation.
Even though they both seemed to tell about segregation, they said them in different ways,
and Richard just said it through his story line, nothing in particular. Melba wrote about some of
the issues in integrating Central High by writing her own story about it, and her experience.
Richard never had extremely life threatening events happen to him like Melba did when she had
acid thrown in her eyes while she was still a student at Central High. Both of their stories are
interesting, although Richard seemed to write hers a bit easier to read.
The autobiographical books were both very informative and they gave a lot of great
information about the life of an African American in the South over a span of about fifty years
between them. Although Black Boy seems to be a little easier to read and understand, I would
recommend reading that over Warriors Don’t Cry because of its overall information of an
African American’s life and a story line that can keep you interested. Warriors Don’t Cry tells a
lot about what had happened in the years where integration in high schools became mandatory
and gives her experiences of it, but it mainly covers only a small period of time and Melba seems
to keep a large amount of hatred toward the Whites throughout her book. Warriors Don’t Cry
isn’t a book I would choose over Black Boy because of its harsh realities and hatred. Both books
are very informative and give you some good insight of what might be going through an African
American’s head during these time periods.