The TWU Community is invited to the 6th annual Jamison Lecture featuring Melba Patillo Beals, Ed.D., journalist, author and member of the Little Rock Nine — the first group of African American students to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Melba's presentation, titled “Warriors Don’t Cry,” will take place online via live stream beginning at 7 p.m., March 18.

The lecture is free and open to the public. A question-and-answer session will follow the discussion. Registration is required, and participants will receive an email with a link to the virtual event prior to the lecture. For more information and to register, please visit twu.edu/jamison.

In her award-winning book, “Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Desegregate Little Rock’s Central High School,” Beals gives a detailed, first-hand account of her experience entering the previously all-white school in the face of violent mobs and death threats at the age of 15. In 1999, Congress awarded Beals and the eight other Little Rock Nine members the Congressional Gold Medal — the nation’s highest honor — for their contribution to the Civil Rights movement.

“Warriors Don’t Cry” has played a significant role in TWU’s history curriculum for several years.

“Our undergraduate students participate in an in-depth reading of Beals’ memoir, so we are eager to have her join us to discuss such a landmark moment in U.S. history,” said Jonathan Olsen, Ph.D., professor and chair of the TWU Department of History and Political Science. “It couldn’t come at a more opportune time, during Women’s History Month. Plus, our students are experiencing their own historic civil rights movement with Black Lives Matter and the recent swearing in of Kamala Harris as our first female, African American and Asian American U.S. Vice President.”

In addition to “Warriors Don’t Cry,” Beals authored “I Will Not Fear: My Story of a Lifetime of Building Faith under Fire” and the prequel to “Warriors,” “March Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine.”

Beals taught journalism at Dominican University of California, where she retired as Chair Emeritus of the Department of Communications and Media Studies in January 2014. According to Beals, “education is one major key to personal equality that cannot be taken away.”

The Jamison Lecture is part of the Nancy P. and Thaddeus E. Paup Lecture Series.