Warriors+&+Fire+Next+Time+book+reviews


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 * Megan Murray (GRED 557 Fall 2013, SUNY Potsdam) **

The themes our group chose for Warriors Don’t Cry, included power, authority and sacrifice. These themes resurface throughout the book. In the beginning, when Melba Beals describes her childhood you get the first glimpse of these themes. She describes scenarios of the racism her family experienced when they went picnicking, and to the local grocery store. Beals’s mother often demonstrates the themes of power, authority and sacrifice. For example, when Beals went to Central High and her life was put into danger everyday, her mother wanted to know what the school was going to do about it. The schools response was nothing: this exemplifies the power and authority of the school and the sacrifice of Beals and her mother.

The book also elicits examples of the activities the children had to give up to protect themselves. Beals for example could no longer go outside her home as men would stay on the streets and wait for her. Her grandmother used to sleep in a rocking chair by the front door with a shotgun on her lap. Beals often could not go to social events and wrestling matches that she used to go to every week for fear of retaliation against her. Ernest Green gave up his senior year to endure a year of hatred and animosity at Central High. Though he went to graduation he did not get a ceremonial experience like most seniors either as he was allowed to walk across stage then be immediately escorted by police home for fear of protestors.

Though white people were the cause of most the hysteria and racism, some white folks were fine with the integration but didn’t dare to speak out against the mobs. That’s also a sacrifice you see present in the book. Beals makes friends with a young white boy named Link, and their friendship cannot be known for fear of what people will do to Beals, as well as Link. Link even makes it look like he hates Beals when they are in school for their protection. Link also was not given a “normal” senior year as many of the whites students activities were cut short due to the chaos.

I find the book over all a delightful read and extremely empowering. It makes myself laugh at the things I thought were unfair in school, or the things I cried about being teased over. In reality my school experience was a walk in the park compared to the Little Rock Nine’s, and I probably took it for granted. If I was to teach this book to a class of my own some day I would definitely use the themes of power and sacrifice. Also, upon teaching this book language is something that would need to be addressed. The book contains some pretty foul language, but its use in the text is imperative to develop an understanding and perception of what it was like a day in the life of the Little Rock Nine. I would just make sure that students understood the severity of those words and make it known that the use of them outside the class and for outside the purpose of the book would not be accepted under any circumstances.

A couple of excerpts that I would focus on for teaching this would be: “The newspaper said Ernie’s diploma cost the taxpayers half a million dollars. Of course, we knew it cost is much, much more than that. It cost us our innocence and a precious year of our teenage lives.” (Beals, 216) This quote just summarizes the sacrifice the students made without talking about material items, the events and the safety they had to go without. It truly encompasses the entirety of the book. Another passage I would use in my classroom would be the scene in which Elizabeth Eckford tries to make her way into school: “ I wanted to help her, but the human wall in front of us would not be moved. We could only wedge through part way. Finally, we realized our efforts were futile; we could only pray as we watched her struggle to survive.”(Beals, 37) Again this is a moment in the text where the reader gets a glimpse at how dangerous it really was for the nine. You also can see power in Elizabeth as yes she was terrified, but she went on ignoring the crowd not letting them see her break.

Overall the book is a really good educational piece that can be used in the social studies and English classrooms. It covers content, but also teaches students a lot more than a history textbook could ever. The themes power, authority and sacrifice are something the students can relate to as well as they continue their education into their high school years. I would have my students write a daily journal reflecting on the sacrifices they would have to give up today if this were to happen to them. What kind of danger they put themselves in, but their families also. Lastly, this book teaches students about perseverance and struggle. Of course the nine students had it hard, but I would hope that today, they would not only be proud of what they did, but realize they helped thousands of students get an equal education from that point on because of the bravery and courage they displayed upon entering that school, every day for a years worth of hostility and adversity.

**Marcus Frisbee – Review of //The Fire Next Time//** **(SECD 357 Fall 2013, SUNY Potsdam)**

James Baldwin’s //The Fire Next Time// is a fascinating piece of American literature, and serves as a great source for understanding race relations in the United States during the 1960s. It is comprised of two pieces: a letter, written to his nephew on the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, and a longer excerpt outlining his experiences growing up as a black man, and his views on how the relationship between whites and blacks in America was characterized. The first piece, the letter, introduces several of the themes that would show up in the later portion of the book.

During his letter to his nephew, Baldwin tells his nephew that he is growing in a country that has celebrated the death of slavery for nearly 100 years, yet continues to support and live in a society that has unofficially subjugated black Americans. He continues by telling his nephew that he is to be strong and proud of his heritage and skin color. He would grow up in a country where people would mock him, people would revile him, and yet he needs to hold his head up high. Baldwin says that what is important is not that his nephew becomes accepted by the white man, but that his nephew accepts the white man. They have their faults, but it is important for his nephew to realize that not all white people are mean and terrible people. These themes of understanding, acceptance, and racial identity permeate through the second half of the book.

The second half of the book is a letter that Baldwin wrote, outlining his experiences growing up as a black man in America, and how race, religion, and society all wove together to give him perspective on life. He discusses how growing up as a Christian, he had serious questions of faith, because if there was an all-loving God, how could he allow such intolerance and hate divide his children? He realized, as a youth, that the power controlled by the government, by the police, by the white society in general, was not to be respected, but feared. White society yearned to keep blacks subjugated.

Religion played another major role in both Baldwin’s life, and in his letter, because he uses religion as a focal point for the arguments on both sides of the race movement. Whether it was white Christians, black Christians, or members of the Nation of Islam, everyone seemed to be using religion as a crutch to justify their actions. However, it is the Nation of Islam that is attached to violence, yet every single Christian nation cannot escape the use of violence in their actions. “In the United States, violence and heroism have been made synonymous except when it comes to blacks…”(72). In Baldwin’s eyes, religion in the 60s had accepted the idea that God saves, but God only saves those who believe in him exactly as that particular religion says you need to believe in him.

While Baldwin often comments on the hypocrisies of society and its institutions, he makes an interesting point about the individual. Can the good deeds of a few spare the damnation of the whole? Can a few white people with good intentions, who truly want to see black Americans succeed, outweigh the evils and faults of their white brothers and sisters? At the end, this is one of Baldwin’s main points: that love, love for one another, is far more important than any divisionary marker, whether that be race, creed, or religion. He recounts a story of having dinner with Elijah Muhammad in which this topic was discussed. Muhammad disagreed with Baldwin’s notion that the few can make up for the many; the white man is damnable //because it as a whole// is damnable. Exceptions to that rule do not matter. This is important as it ties back into Baldwin’s other themes of understanding and acceptance. Even religions that are almost always fundamentally founded on the concepts brotherhood can be terribly hypocritical in their positions on understanding and acceptance. This is why Baldwin stresses understanding and acceptance to his nephew. Love, love for himself, love for his fellow man, is the most important lesson that Baldwin could teach to his nephew.

James Baldwin’s //The Fire Next Time// covers such themes as acceptance, understanding, and hypocrisy. His views upon race and religion deal with the inherent hypocrisy that was found permeating through white society in the 1960s, as well as some of the mainstream religions of the time. Religions such as Christianity and the Nation of Islam stressed ideas that God saves his children, but they unofficially supported the notion that God doesn’t save anyone else.