Roll+of+Thunder,+Hear+My+Cry

=ONLINE NOVEL= =Overview= toc The land is all-important to the Logan family. But it takes awhile for Cassie and her three brothers to understand just how lucky they are to have it. They must learn the hard way that having a place they can call their own in rural Mississippi permits the Logans the luxuries of pride and courage that their poor black sharecropper neighbor can't afford.

Having land gives the Logan children an emotional foundation as they begin to notice the difference between how white children and black children are treated in the Jim Crow South of the Great Depression. Like how textbooks are only issued to black children — labeled "nigra" in the book's inside cover — after they've been thoroughly used by white children. And it takes injustices such as these, and a turbulent year of intense racial prejudice, of night riders and burnings, to show Cassie just how important owning their own land is.

Winner of the 1977 Newbery Medal and nominated for the National Book Award, the story of Cassie Logan, an independent girl growing up relatively protected in a loving family, is culled from author Mildred Taylor's own family's life. It not only stands as an important addition to the cumulative record of the African-American experience, but crafted with astonishing verisimilitude, it stands as well as an important contribution to young adult literature, as well.

=Characters= **P****rotagonist -** Cassie Logan, a 9 year old girl in the Logan family wants to be able to go to school, choose her own friends, have nice books to read, and in general enjoy the rights and privileges–and receive the respect–that ought to belong to any human being. However, Cassie and her brothers live in the deep south during the depression in an area that suffers from racist attitudes in spite of the abolition of slavery nearly 75 years earlier. Although there are many frustrating little incidents–and some that are not so little–the primary conflict is internal for Cassie. She is beginning to grow up and to realize that, whether it is right or not, there are things she cannot do and cannot have just because she is black. While Cassie does not have to accept it, in her particular time, she does have to figure out how to live with it and still preserve her sense of personal identity, something that is strongly connected to the land her father owns. **Antagonists -** The antagonists are the white landowners, shopkeepers and their children with whom Cassie and her siblings must interact. If the Blacks do not behave as required, they can expect to be threatened and humiliated by the whites or even tormented and tortured by the night riders.

Major Characters **Cassie:** The only daughter of Mary and David Logan. Cassie is mature in regard to her sense of morality (she believes in justice and kindness, for example) but she is naïve. She does not understand the depth and cruelty of the racism around her. She expects to be treated as a real person, and white people in her town simply do not do this for a young black girl. Throughout the book, she learns from her loving parents about when to fight and when to keep quiet, and how to keep your dignity when the world seems set on taking it away.
 * Little Man:** The youngest son of Mary and David Logan, Little Man is sometimes the most mature. He is rarely afraid of danger and loves adventure. He dislikes cruelty and lies--one reason why he hates T.J. He is also very neat: he worries constantly about his clothes and possessions becoming dirty.
 * Stacey:** Cassie's older brother. Stacey tries to be a man but sometimes fails. He is brave and compassionate, but not always wise--T.J. tricks him into giving him his new coat, for example. He wants to take care of the farm by himself when his father is gone, so resents the presence of Mr. Morrison, who was sent by their father to protect them.
 * Christopher-John:** Brother of Cassie, Stacey and Little Man. Christopher John is perhaps the meekest of all the children. He prefers to stay safe at home most of the time, and he loves to eat. However, he does not like to be left behind, so he often goes on adventures just for that reason.
 * David Logan:** Husband of Mary and father of Cassie and her brothers. David, or 'Papa,' is kind and wise and hardworking. He loves his children and wants them to succeed and be good people. In turn, his children love him dearly. He wants to fight racism wherever it occurs, but he does not want his family to be hurt, and he sometimes worries about losing his land to the racist rich people around him.
 * Hammer Logan:** David's hotheaded brother. Hammer would rather simply kill the white people who harass and attack him than try to reason with them. He doesn't think they deserve compassion, since they have given him none. He lives in Chicago and makes a good living, priding himself on living as an equal to his white neighbors.
 * Mary Logan:** David's wife and mother of Cassie and her brothers. Intelligent, beautiful and strong, Mary has wanted to be a teacher all her life. She is committed to fighting for racial justice, no matter what it costs her. However, she desperately wants to protect her family, and worries they will be hurt.
 * Caroline Logan:** 'Big Ma' is David's mother. She has worked the land since she was eighteen, and loves it as much as her dead husband did. She is good with medicine, and takes care of her family and neighbors. Strong and good-natured, she works in the fields like a young woman.
 * T.J. Avery:** Stacey's best friend T.J. is a fourteen-year-old boy who everyone thinks is obnoxious. He talks constantly, loves to brag, won't obey his parents, cheats on tests, and lies. Later in the book he begins to steal from people, and finally gets in trouble for taking part in a robbery with two white boys who then accuse him of murdering the shopkeeper (which they did themselves).

Minor Characters

 * Harlan Granger:** Rich white man who lives near the Logans. His family owned much of the land in the area half a century ago, and now Granger wants to buy it back. He threatens the Logans in every way possible to try to get them to give it up.
 * Claude Avery:** T.J.'s quiet brother, who allows him to do whatever he wants to him because he is afraid of him. Claude even takes a beating for T.J.
 * Jeremy Simms:** A young sad-looking white boy who wants to befriend Stacey and the other children. Everyone is suspicious of him, because he seems to hate his own family and be willing to accept beatings from his family to be friends with the Logans, who often tell him to go away. He is always good-natured around the Logans, though.
 * Lillian Jean Simms:** Jeremy's sister, who insults Cassie. Cassie tricks her into becoming friends with her, gets her to tell all her secrets, then beats her up. Lillian Jean is confused. She did not understand Cassie at all--she assumed that Cassie liked being treated as a slave.
 * Daisy Crocker:** Cassie and Little Man's teacher. She accepts racism and teaches in an ignorant and boring way.
 * Mr. Morrison:** A very strong man who comes to live with the Logans because he lost his job and Papa wants a man around to protect them when he is not there. Mr. Morrison has been terrorized by white people all his life, but he is not afraid of them. He is a quiet but brave man.
 * Mr. Jamison:** A kind-hearted and just white man who offers to provide credit for any black person who wants to shop somewhere other than the racist Wallace store. He respects his black neighbors. He even tries to protect T.J. while endangering his own life. The Logans are grateful to him.

=Plot= **Setting** The story is set in Mississippi during the Great Depression around 1933-1934. It is an area where former plantation owners and their descendants have been forced to resort to sharecropping their land in order to continue some semblance of their pre-Civil War way of life. The Black families who had been freed by the war have had no where to go and no means of survival off the plantations. Thus they became the tenant farmers or sharecroppers, planting acres of cotton or other crops. The landowner took a percentage of the crop as his share, and the tenant farmer tried to survive on what remained. A major problem with the system was that there was no standard for what was a fair share of the farmer’s work.

In this type of environment, a Black family who owned their own land was unique and would have been seen as a threat to the whites. There were also no banking regulations. If a bank owner wanted to recall a loan and demand that it be paid immediately, there was nothing to prevent him from doing so. In Mississippi, not even the American legal system worked for the blacks. A white person could even go so far as to kill a Black without fear of prosecution, but a Black person could be executed for very minor offenses-or even on entirely false charges, which frequently happened. It is in this environment of fear and subjugation that we find the Logan family.

Rising Action
 * Climax -** The climax occurs when T.J. Avery gets involved in robbery and assault along with two white boys whom he regards as friends. When the boys go too far and T.J. tries to get out of it, they beat him up. The boys, who wear masks to conceal their identity, put the blame for the robbery all onto T.J. A group of outraged white men descend on the Avery house intending to hang T.J.. However, David Logan, Cassie’s father, sets his own cotton on fire to distract the landowners and prevent a hanging.


 * Falling Action -** The Wallaces and Simms show up at T.J.'s house to punish him for robbing the store—by hanging him. But just as they're about to string him up—and maybe a few other people for good measure—a fire breaks out on Granger land. Everyone heads off to fight the fire, and T.J. is taken into custody by local lawyer Mr. Jamison.


 * Resolution-** The landowners and Logan family work together to put out the fire. The Logans are able to come up with the tax money and continue holding on to their land, but T.J. Avery is most likely going to be executed for the murder of Mr. Barnett even though he did not do it. The story ends with Cassie weeping for the land and for T.J., knowing that as a 9 year old girl, there is nothing she can do to change the situation.

=Mood= Somber, tragic, leaving the reader with a paralyzing sense of the injustice and cruelty inflicted on some of America’s people. The protagonist also develops an understandable sense of bitterness.

=Major Themes= There is one lesson Cassie need not learn throughout Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry because it is already second nature to her: that there is nothing more important than family. Cassie's shock when Jeremy says that he does not like his older brothers demonstrates her firm belief that family is more important than anything else. From Big Ma's stories about her husband and sons to Mr. Morrison's willingness to risk his life to protect the Logans, it is clear that love of and devotion to family is the motivation that drives the majority of the characters in this novel to act as they do. Those who behave like TJ and abandon their families ties are lost, but those like Papa, who is willing to risk even death to protect his family, triumph..
 * The importance of family**

Repeated again and again throughout the book is a refrain spoken by Big Mama, Mama, and Papa: "we won't lose the land." In a culture where the memory of slavery is still strong, land is a symbol of independence and autonomy. Because they own land, the Logans can afford to shop in Vicksburg and are not beholden to the whims of landlords as sharecroppers are. Unlike Mr. Granger who sees the land as a symbol of his family's "rightful" domination over blacks, for the Logans, the land is intrinsically linked to family. Cassie says that it doesn't matter whose name the deed is in because it will always be "Logan land." It is only when she realizes the seriousness of the threats to her family and their land that she cries "for...the land" at the end of the book.
 * Land as a symbol of independence**

Weather is more than a meteorological phenomena. As the words to Mr. Morrison's song suggest, weather is a sentient entity capable of hearing his cry and empathizing. The dust, rain, and mud emphasize the white degradation of the black school children, and the physical barrier posed by walking to school in the rain echo the barriers erected to the black children's education by the school board. The climax of the book occurs simultaneously with a massive thunder storm, and the approaching storm cannot be separated from the approaching violence. Ultimately, however, this weather is empathetic. The rain which comes and puts out the fire helps to bring about an end to both the physical and emotional storm.
 * Weather as echo of human emotions**

Throughout the book, situations occur from which no escape seems possible and in which the loss of land or life, seems inevitable. When faced with the worst, however, Taylor's characters ultimately pull through their troubles. Uncle Hammer, when called upon to pay the bank note, does not lose his temper or threaten violence but instead willingly sells his beloved Packard car. Most illustrative of this theme is the scene in which black and white men and women work side by side to put out the fire. These are the same people who had been previously threatened each others' lives and livelihood. When faced with a common threat, they cease to see the differences of race and identity between them.
 * Hope in the face of destruction**

Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry fills the course of a year, beginning with the cotton harvest and ending with another approaching harvest. The time periods in the book are delineated more often by cycles of weather than by real time: dusty, hot fall; rainy, muddy winter; beautiful, green spring; and carefree summer. Big Ma always reassures Little Man that the rains will end and the sun will shine again. This theme of hope and change is reflected in Cassie's final thoughts in the book. She and her brother will resume their normal life, but TJ will not. This emphasis on time as a cycle is usually a source of hope because it offers a promise that whatever hardship is occurring will eventually cease. At the same time, it is a source of constant fear in a racist and often violent society. The tensions that grew and erupted with the beating and arrest of TJ will calm down, but will eventually grow and erupt again..
 * Passage of time as a cycle**

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is a coming of age story for Cassie, as she realizes the extent of racism in the South over the course of her tenth year. At the same time, Cassie learns the importance of love, family, and self-respect. For Cassie, it is through personal humiliation during an incident in Strawberry that she must learn that life is not fair; through the pain of watching TJ's destruction she learns that even the smallest offense by even the youngest black person can bring about irrevocable punishment; from her parents worries about losing the land she learns that nothing is truly secure. Stacey, like Cassie, must learn from similar experiences. But for both, these realizations are significant only in that they spark newly mature reactions of responsibility, love, and caring. To respond in a more foolish manner, as TJ did, would be to seek to be treated as a man while acting like a boy and therefore be unfairly meted the punishment of a man.
 * Coming of age through experience and pain**

It is no accident that the Logan childrens' closest friends are each other, for they share the same values and know that they can trust one other. Papa tells Stacey that friendships between blacks and whites are a risk, as TJ's friendship with RW and Melvin later demonstrates. At the same time, Jeremy's persistence in seeking TJ's friendship shows him to be a true friend, and the impossibility of their friendship is a sad circumstance of their environment. Despite his anger at TJ for his previous wrongs, Stacey shows himself to be a true friend when he is most needed, risking his own safety to try to save TJ.
 * Friendship as risk**

Papa talks to his children about the fig tree which has just as much right to grow in the ground as the other, bigger trees, and just keeps on growing, "doing what it's gotta do." For Papa, this philosophy does not excuse excessive cruelty or violence but rather speaks to the necessity of sacrifice. Papa sacrifices his own cotton and puts himself in danger when he starts the fire to save TJ's life. Sacrifices sometimes include doing distasteful things to ensure survival, for example, when Big Ma must force Cassie call Lillian Jean "Miz." But according to Papa's philosophy, self-respect, not necessity, inspires doing what you gotta do. Papa urges his children to be true to themselves, and to do both what they must do to survive and to respect themselves at the same time.
 * Doing what you "gotta do"**

The lesson that Mama is in the middle of teaching when the school board fires her is a particularly apt one. She is not just teaching of the cruelties of slavery but also of the economic benefits that led whites to enslave blacks in the first place. Harlan Granger and Kaleb Wallace, who fire Mama, both make a great deal of money from white subjugation of blacks--Granger from sharecroppers and Wallace from customers without cash who have no choice but to shop at his store. The hatred felt and acted upon by Granger, Wallace, and others feeds this greed. By ensuring through acts of violence that they can pressure and control blacks, they also ensure the continuance of an economic system that benefits them. Granger's desire to buy the Logan land is intertwined and inseperable from his hatred of blacks. Even his actions in calling to mob off to go put out the fire are inspired by his greed. Papa recognizes and capitalizes upon this greed when he comes up with the strategy of setting the fire in the first place.
 * Greed as a cause of hatred**

Mary and David Logan instill self-respect and independence in their children. It is a testament to Cassie's self-respect that she is utterly shocked by Mr. Barnett's treatment of her in his store. The same self-assurance explain's Little Man's reaction to the derogatory statements in his textbook. In the course of the story, the children must learn to balance survival with self-respect. Hammer, with his short temper, has difficulty doing so. TJ, because he has so little self-regard, ends up ruined. For all of the characters, self-respect is born of independence, of choosing freely and accepting the responsibility for their choices. Examples of this responsibility include when when Mr. Morrison leaves it up to Stacey to confess going to the Wallace store or, more seriously, when Papa weighs the risks and still chooses to go to Vicksburg.
 * Independence and self-respect**

= =

=Chapter Summaries=

Chapters 1-3
The Logan children are starting a new school year. As they go to school, they are met by their friends from other families, including Jeremy Simms, a white boy, who walks part of the way to school with them. When at the school, segregated from the all white county school, they are greeted by the announcement that they are to receive new books this year. When Little Man, the youngest Logan finds that the 'new' books are ten year old castoffs from the white school, he refuses to take his. His older sister Cassie does the same. Their mother, who teaches grade seven, solves the dilemma by pasting a piece of paper into each book to cover its history of ownership. She does the same with all her grade seven books. Later, the whole family is working in their cotton fields when their father arrives home unexpectedly. He brings with him a Mr. Morrison, who is a huge man. He injured a white man in a fight and needs somewhere to live. Mr. Logan brings him to his farm both to offer him work and to provide some protection for the family against an as yet unnamed danger. On their way to school in the rain on foot, the Logans are splashed by the county school bus full of whites. The driver delights in this and the white children enjoy the joke. After other occasions, the Logans get revenge by digging a washout which breaks the school bus's axle, putting it out of commission for two weeks. The children hear of night riders who are about to settle a score with the black community. The children hear of a recent incident in which the night riders set fire to four black men, and think that the night riders are out to avenge the damage to the school bus.

Chapters 4-6
The children discover from T.J. that the night men were not coming for them after all. On the night they rode, they caught Mr. Tatum and tarred and feathered him for calling the storekeeper a liar. Mr Morrison moves into the old shack on the edge of the farm. The younger children like him, but Stacey feels that Mr Morrison has stolen his job of 'being the man of the family'. T.J. steals the seventh grade history test from Mrs. Logan's desk in her home. Stacey tries to stop the cheating during the examination, but is caught by his mother with the notes. Since he won't tell on T.J., Stacey receives the beating. Meanwhile, T.J. escapes to the Wallace store, where the Logans are forbidden to go. Stacey breaks the rules to find T.J. and settle the score. The fight has hardly begun when Mr. Morrison appears with the wagon. He breaks up the fight and takes them home. As they arrive home, they see Mr. Grainger's car leaving. He has been trying to get Big Ma to sell him the two hundred acres which was once Grainger land. Big Ma tells the tale of how the land came to be Logan land. When Stacey confesses his fight at the store with T.J., Mama takes the children to visit the Berrys, where they see the result of one of the night men's rides. Mr. Berry is one of the survivors of the burning. As they return home, Mrs Logan conceives the plan of boycotting the Wallace store. Big Ma takes T.J., Stacey and Cassie with her to market in Strawberry. Cassie sees the way blacks are treated in a community, and doesn't like it and doesn't understand it. When they arrive home, the children find that their Uncle Hammer is visiting from the north. He has a good job, and a car just like Mr. Grainger's. Later, when Cassie tells her story of Strawberry, Hammer jumps up angry and heads out to avenge his niece. Mamma quickly sends Mr. Morrison after him. She tells the children the story of why the whites treat the blacks the way they do. The next day they all go to church in Hammer's car. Before they leave. Hammer gives Stacey the new jacket which was intended to be a Christmas present. On the way back from church, they go for a drive through the countryside. When they come to a one lane bridge, the Simms' yield to the big car, thinking it is Mr. Grainger. Hammer laughs at them as he drives by, but Mama says that one day they will have to pay for the insult.

Chapters 7-9
Stacey gives T.J. his new coat after being tricked. He receives a stern lecture from his Uncle Hammer. Cassie starts to plot her revenge against Lillian Jean. On the day before Christmas, Papa comes home from his work on the railroads in Louisiana. During an episode of story telling, Mr. Morrison tells them of his family's death at the hands of the night men. Mama explains her plan to boycott the Wallace store. Shortly after dinner, Jeremy Simms appears at the house, to give Stacey a homemade wooden flute for a Christmas present, then leaves. Papa explains that it is not good for black folks to have much to do with white folks. Mr. Jamison agrees to back the credit for the sharecroppers at the store in Vicksburg, knowing that he will be unpopular. Mr. Grainger threatens Papa with the prospect of losing his land to the bank. Cassie starts her planned revenge on Lillian Jean. During the examinations, T.J. is caught cheating and fails. T.J. tells the whites what Mrs. Logan is teaching, causing her to be fired. The Logans stop being friends with T.J., who takes up with the older Simms boys. Jeremy tells of the way T.J. is only serving as the boys laughing stock, but T.J. doesn't see it. Mr. Grainger threatens the sharecroppers and the store boycott weakens. During a trip to Vicksburg, the Wallaces attack Mr. Morrison and Papa. Mr Morrison drives them off, but Papa's leg is broken. Now there is no wage earner in the Logan family. .

Chapters 10-12
Mama and Papa worry about how they will pay the mortgage and the taxes on the land. On a trip to a neighbor's, Mr. Morrison has another run in with Kaleb Wallace. Mr. Morrison comes out best, but Wallace threatens to get even. Mama tells him she's worried that the threats will be carried out. The bank calls the mortgage due and threatens to take the land. Mama keeps the men from doing anything rash, and sends to Hammer for money. Hammer brings the money himself, part of which comes from selling his car. T.J. is now part of the 'gang' of the Simms boys, and admits that he will do anything to get the pearl handled revolver in the store. Late one night he comes to the children's bedroom, badly hurt and tells them of a bungled theft at the store. T.J. climbed in a window and let the Simms' in, but they were caught by the storekeeper. The Simms' knocked down and possibly killed both him and his wife. After they fled, the Simms' beat T.J., hoping to keep him from telling anyone about the crime. The night men assemble, and go to T.J.'s home. They break in, injuring family members, and take T.J., intending to lynch him. Mr. Jamison holds them back, trying to get T.J. arrested and put safely in jail. Mr. Morrison and Papa head for T.J.'s house to help. During the quarrel, lightning starts a fire in the Logan's cotton fields. Mr Grainger sees the threat to his land, and orders everyone to fight the fire. By the time the fire is out, all the members of the community of both races have come together to fight the fire. Cassie discovers that Papa started the fire in an effort to save T.J.. The story ends with T.J. in jail, and Cassie wondering what will happen to him, to her father and to the Logan land.