Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry

The story takes place in Mississippi in the early 1900's. It is

long after the Civil War, but long before integration. The

southern states had been permitted to practice a "separate but

equal" policy which really had nothing equal about it. Whites

and blacks were separated in every way-separate schools,

separate churches, designated water fountains, specific places

to stand or sit in a market place, and so forth. Blacks had been

freed by the Civil War but many had no place to go accept

back to the plantations they had left where they worked as

tenant farmers. There they were at the mercy of the landlord

who could take whatever percentage he wanted along with

other fees. The "night riders" of the story seem like echoes of

the Ku Klux Klan in that they attacked without warning and

with little or no provocation. Furthermore, Blacks had very few

who would take up their cause, and those who did-like Mr.

Jamison-were ridiculed and threatened by others in the

community. White men could attack and kill Blacks and were

never so much as questioned on it while a Black man could

expect severe sentences for even being accused of something a

white person did not like. The Logan family is unusual in this

context, for they own their land and thus are not dependent on

the white landowners in the area. The land itself, however, is

not sufficient to provide their living and the price of their

primary crop, cotton, is controlled by those to whom they have

to sell it. Then Mr. Logan stays away from home