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Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
New York:  Penguin Books, 1976

     Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is the 1977 Newberry Medal winning story of Cassie Logan and her family.  This close-knit, black Mississippi family, like most black American families in the Deep South in the early 1930s, struggle just to survive.  However, unlike most of their neighbors, the Logans own their land, and in spite of the underhanded tactics of Mr. Granger to take it away, they are determined to keep the land in the family.  To do so, they must carefully decide when to turn the other cheek and when to fight for their rights.      
     The children attend poorly funded, segregated schools and must get by with tattered, hand me down school books.  Ma is a teacher, but she tells the truth regarding slavery and racial discrimination at her own peril.  Pa is away more than he is home as he works on the railroad trying to supplement their meager income growing cotton.  In a land of lynchings, this touching, thought provoking story culminates in a crisis that becomes a matter of life and death when the family fights vigilante justice against a neighbor at their own peril. 
     While no section of the United States was immune from racial discrimination in the aftermath of the Civil War, conditions remained particularly harsh and dangerous for black Americans in Mississippi.  For over a century following the war, black Americans and their white supporters in the Deep South in general, and Mississippi in particular, were harassed and even murdered when they made an effort to stand up for their rights.
     In the early 1930s, conditions were especially difficult for black Southern families trying to educate their children and eke out a living from the land.  In the depths of the depression, cotton prices were low and job opportunities were limited, especially for black Southerners.

Comment
     Mildred D. Taylor, born in Jackson, Mississippi, and inspired by the stories of her late father, wrote a series of young adult, novels describing life in the South during those hard times.  As Ms. Taylor explains in her Author's Note, "By the fireside in our northern home or in the South where I was born, I learned a history not then written in books but one passed from generation to generation in one-room houses, a history of great-grandparents and of slavery and of the days following slavery; of those who lived still not free, yet who would not let their spirits be enslaved."
     Students will find the story both entertaining and compelling.  It is narrated in the first person by Cassie, one of the Logan children.  While fictional, one senses the novel is inspired by events close to the truth.  It is an inspirational story, and students will learn a great deal about what it was like to be a black American in the South during the Great Depression.

Reading Level:  5.7
Interest Level:  5 - 8 (in my opinion, the book will appeal to older readers as well)
210 pages

Supports the following Instructional Objectives:

 Identify the Tensions Associated with the Definitions of American Democracy in the Red Scare, the Bonus March, the Ku Klux Klan, the Role of Government in Economic Crisis and the Japanese Internment

Analyze the Causes of the Great Depression and its Effects upon American Society

Excerpt

     "It is something, Cassie.  White is something just like black is something.  Everybody born on this earth is something and nobody, no matter what color, is better than anybody else."
     "Then how come Mr. Simms don't know that?"
     "Because he's one of those people who has to believe that white people are better than black people to make himself feel big."  I stared questioningly at Mama, not really understanding.   Mama squeezed my hand and explained further.  "You see, Cassie, many years ago when our people were first brought from Africa in chains to work as slaves in this country-"
     "Like Big Ma's papa and mama?"
     Mama nodded.  "Yes, baby , like Papa Luke and Mama Rachel, except they were born right here in Mississippi.  But their grandparents were born in Africa, and when they cam there were some white people who thought it was wrong for any people to be slaves; so the people who needed slaves to work in their fields and the people who were making money bringing slaves from Africa preached that black people weren't really people like white people were, so slavery was all right.
    "They also said that slavery was good for us because it taught us to be good Christians - like the white people."  She sighed deeply, her voice fading in to a distant whisper.  "But they didn't teach us Christianity to save our souls, but to teach us obedience.  They were afraid of slave revolts and they wanted us to learn the Bible's teachings about slaves being loyal to their masters.  But even teaching us Christianity didn't make us stop wanting to be free, and many slaves ran away -"

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