I will Not Fear by Melba Pattillo Beals

My Story of a Lifetime of Building Faith under Fire

Melba was one of the Little Rock Nine, the first group of African-Americans to integrate all-white schools in 1957. I'm not sure which is most amazing to me: the courage and determination and trust in God she displayed to stick out that year of integration or the cruel meanness of people that wanted her dead because of it. I am not from the South so maybe that is why I can't fully understand, but I am shocked that people would treat their fellow human beings in such horrendous ways.

But Melba had courage and strength and grit. She is to be admired. One thing I liked about this book was at the end of every chapter there was a brief statement that kind of summed up the chapter. Almost every summary brings out a way that God works and how we can respond. For example: "Living in a world in which we stand out for one reason or another requires us to be even closer to God and have the faith to know that we are not required to fight every battle."

The stories Melba can tell of the close calls and the way God looked out for her. Twice, she felt the prompting of God to do something and both times, seconds later a bullet whizzed in right where she or her daughter would have been standing.

She endured a series of break-ins which caused her a great amount of fear and distrust. One time it also included her throwing clay pots of flowers at the intruder to prevent him from coming up the steps with a butcher knife.

Adopting twin boys at the age of 50 and then fighting for their protection. I can't say more because I will give away too many spoilers to tell those stories.

Even though she has lived for years in California, she still fights racial prejudice. When she goes looking for a house to live in, she starts early because she knows it will take her a lot longer than a white person to find a place to live. Houses will magically be rented out when she stops to ask, but if a few minutes later, a white friend stops in, why yes the house is available. She has had to fight her way through her life to prove her worth as a person of color and also as a female at times. But she has stood courageous and claimed God as her rock through it all.

The story is very interesting. I struggled a bit with the style of writing. It wasn't necessarily in chronological order as much as each chapter had a theme and so then sometimes you weren't quite sure when in her life she was talking about and sometimes there was a bit of repetition, but the story definitely is worth reading.

One of the things I really respected about Melba in this book is the way she treated her ex-husband. Due to his inability to embrace her dreams (he wanted a housewife, she wanted a career) they divorced, but she never really had anything bad to say about him. She loved him. He was the white person that inspired confidence in her. In truth, I'm not sure she ever gave his real name. When she introduces him in the book, she says, a man whom she will call Jay. I appreciated that about her.

I received this book from Revell and was not required to write a positive review.