Melba Joyner Pattillo Beals is an American journalist and was a member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who were the first to integrate Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Background
Melba Beals was born on December 7, 1941 in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. Melba Pattillo Beals grew up in a family who all valued the importance of education. Her mother, Lois Marie Pattillo, a Doctor of Philosophy, was one of the first black graduates of the University of Arkansas in 1954 and was a middle school English teacher at the time of the Little Rock Nine integration of Central High School. Her father, Howell Pattillo, worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Melba also has a brother, Conrad S. Pattillo, and they all lived with her grandmother, India Peyton at the time of the crisis.
Education
While attending Horace Mann High School in Little Rock, an all-black high school, Melba was aware that she was not receiving the same quality education as her peers at Central High School. Pattillo then volunteered to transfer to the all-white Central High School with eight other black students from Horace Mann and Dunbar Junior High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. She did not get to finish her school career there, because the governor, Orval Faubus closed all of the Little Rock schools the following year to block integration.
Beals was 14 years old when in May 1956, she chose to go to Central High school, an all-white school. Two years later, she was enrolled as a student at Central High. She then attended San Francisco State University, earning a bachelor's degree. She later earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
Career
At age seventeen Melba began writing for major newspapers and magazines. She taught journalism at Dominican University of California, where she is the chair emeritus of the communications department.
Melba was a former television news reporter for National Broadcasting Corporation, a nd also an owner of a public relations and marketing firm Media Exposure in Sausalito, California, United States.
Achievements
In 1959, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People awarded the Spingarn Medal to Beals and to the other members of the Little Rock Nine, together with civil rights leader Daisy Bates, who had advised the group during their struggles at Central High. In 1999, she and the rest of the Nine were awarded the highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal.
