After describing racial tensions in the Tysons’ new town of Oxford, this chapter narrates the effects of Martin Luther King’s 1968 assassination on blacks and whites there, focusing on the Tyson household and Vernon’s church. Tim gives us a touch of humor in his relationship with the town’s outspoken, unrepentant poet laureate Chad Stem, and ends with a solemn promise from the boy to his elder.
What did World War II have to do with civil rights struggles?
How does Oxford compare with how your town probably was forty years ago? Have you heard stories about or had first-hand experience with black servants? Is there in North Carolina in our time a certain race or ethnic group that does much of the domestic work and most of the backbreaking farm work?
Can you guess what Tim’s promise is to Chad? Are there any promises you have made to yourself or others that miles (and years) from now you think you will feel the need to keep?
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