As a teenager, Melba Beals was caught up in a civil rights firestorm. After the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, Beals was hopeful that she could attend the prestigious Little Rock Central High School. When a federal judge ordered Centtal High to desegregate in 1957 the NAACP recruited Beals and other black teens for this difficult task. Angry mobs blocked the black students from entering the high school, resulting in a three-week standoff between students and segregationists. President Eisenhower had to send troops to escort the black students into the school and force integration. Even with this protection, Beals and the other black students had to endure slurs, fights, and physical abuse as part of the first integrated class at Central High. In a later interview about her experiences, Beals noted that she wanted to attend Central for the educational opportunities, not to be the first to integrate. As a result other experience, Beals learned to relate to the media and pursued a career in journalism. After receiving a Masters degree in journalism from Columbia University, Beals worked as a news reporter in California. Her novels Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock Central High School and White Is a State of Mind were influential works describing the desegregation of public schools. In 1999 the nine students who integrated LRHS were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor in the United States.