Big Boy Leaves Home

Reading Big Boy Leaves Home brought to mind the sheer horror and inhumane treatment of African Americans during the Jim Crow era. What I cannot grasp is the desire to participate in this treatment. From the glorious singing to the presence of women, I am unable to understand the pure gratification and satisfaction associated with lynching and harassment of African Americans. If you could rewrite this story what would you add? What would you take away? How would it end?

Historical Resources...

...for teaching Uncle Tom's Children:

Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America by James Allen etal. Twin Palms Publishers, 2004.

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America by John M Barry. Simon & Schuster, 1997

The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity by James C. Cobb. Oxford U Press, 1992.

Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow by Neil McMillen. U of Illinois, 1989.

Lynchings in Mississippi: A History, 1865-1965 by Julius E. Thompson. McFarland, 2007.

The Richard Wright Encyclopedia by Jerry W. Ward & Robert J. Butler. Greenwood, 2008

~ Happy Reading Maggie