Warriors Don't Cry Read Online Free PDF

town. All but one person warned her not to cause trouble. After she had dialed at least ten numbers, she sank down into her chair with a sad face and placed the receiver in its cradle. She sat silent for a long while. Then she picked up her Bible and read aloud the verse that cleared away the tears in her eyes: “And Ethiopia shall stretch forth her wings.” With a smile on her face and fire in her eyes she said, “Be patient, our people’s turn will come. You’ll see. Your lifetime will be different from mine. I might not live to see the changes, but you will. . . . Oh, yes, my child, you will.”
    But as time passed without significant changes in my life, I was becoming increasingly anxious waiting for Ethiopia to stretch forth her wings. In my diary I wrote:
What if Grandma is wrong?—what if God can’t fix things. What if the white people are always gonna be in charge. God, now, please give me some sign you are there and you are gonna do something to change my life. Please hurry!
    —Melba Pattillo—age eight—a Sunday School student
     
    I was as impatient for change as I was with the location of the rest rooms marked “Colored.” As a child it seemed they were always located miles away from wherever I was when I felt the urge to go. When we shopped in the downtown stores, the rest rooms were usually located at the end of a dark hallway, or at the bottom of a dingy stairwell. It never failed that either I dampened my pants trying to get there in time or, worse yet, got a horrible ache in my side trying to hold my water until I got home.
    An experience I endured on a December morning would forever affect any decision I made to go “potty” in a public place. We were Christmas shopping when I felt the twinge of emergency. I convinced Mother and Grandmother that I knew the way to the rest room by myself. I was moving as fast as I could when suddenly I knew I wasn’t going to make it all the way down those stairs and across the warehouse walkway to the “Colored Ladies” toilet.
    So I pushed open the door marked “White Ladies” and, taking a deep breath, I crossed the threshold. It was just as bright and pretty as I had imagined it to be. At first I could only hear voices nearby, but when I stepped through a second doorway, I saw several white ladies chatting and fussing with their makeup. Across the room, other white ladies sat on a couch reading the newspaper. Suddenly realizing I was there, two of them looked up at me in astonishment. Unless I was the maid, they said, I was in the wrong place. But it was clear I was too young to be the maid. While they shouted at me to “get out,” my throbbing bladder consumed my attention as I frantically headed for the unoccupied stall.
    They kept shouting, “Good Lord, do something.” I was doing something by that time, seated comfortably on the toilet, listening to the hysteria building outside my locked stall. One woman even knelt down to peep beneath the door to make certain I didn’t put my bottom on the toilet seat. She ordered me not to pee.
    At first there was so much carrying-on outside my stall that I was afraid to come out. But I wanted to see all the special things about the white ladies’ rest room, so I had no choice. A chorus of “Nigger” and other nasty words billowed around me as I washed my hands. One woman waved her finger in my face, warning me that her friend had gone after the police and they would teach me a thing or two. Hearing the word “police” terrified me. Daddy and Mother Lois were afraid of the police. The ladies were hurrying out through the door saying they were going to tell the manager that they would never shop in that store again.
    Just then I heard a familiar voice: “Melba Joy Pattillo, just what are you doing in there.” It was Grandma India calling out to me. She stepped inside the room. I was so happy to see her that I rushed to give her a hug. Her embrace made me feel safe, but the fear in her voice brought back