Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

John Henry Berry was set afire by drunken white men, and died of his injuries. John Henry Berry was the owner of an old Model-T pickup, and had stopped for gas at a filling station in Strawberry....

Lillian Jean Simms truly believes that as a white girl, she is superior to "her little colored friend". Cassie, outraged at being treated literally like a slave, feigns subservient...

Mr. Morrison is a large man that David Logan hires to help out on his farm while he is away working on the railroad. As David tells it, Mr. Morrison has lost his job on the railroad. But Mr....

The education that the children of Great Faith Elementary and Secondary School receive is in no way equal to the education that the children of Jefferson Davis County School receive. In the Jim...

The Logans are encouraging their friends to boycott the local Wallace Store and shop in Vicksburg, where they're treated better. This puts them in a dangerous situation and even puts the land they...

The reference to “night riders” in Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry is intended to evoke the desperate fears of liberated slaves and, later, of African Americans in general, of white...

Jeremy Simms, described as a "strange boy," is an eleven-year-old white boy who tries to be friends with Stacey and the other Logan children. Along with the attorney Wade Jamison, Jeremy's role is...

A conflict is Harlan Granger’s dispute with the Logan’s over their land. A conflict is a struggle between opposing forces. Since this story takes place during the Great Depression in the Deep...

The final resolution in the book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry proves to be bittersweet. In the end, T.J. is hunted down by the "night men," also known as the lynch mob. In the dark of night, the...

Cassie became angry and Mr. Barnett because he waited on her after all the white people. Mr. Barnett is the shopkeeper in Strawberry. Cassie really likes the store when she goes into it. The...

Very early in Mildred D. Taylor’s novel of life in the post-Civil War American South, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, told from the perspective of a young African-American girl, Cassie Logan, the...

The Logan's land had previously belonged to the Granger family until after the Civil War when they "had sold it during Reconstruction to a Yankee for tax money." The Granger family had repurchased...

According to T.J., Sam Tatum was tarred and feathered because he allegedly called Mr. Jim Lee Barnett, the man who runs the Mercantile in Strawberry, a liar. T.J. says that Mr. Tatum told Mr....

The title Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is the first line of the song of the same title: Roll of thunderHear my cryOver the waterBye and byeOle man comin'Down the lineWhip in hand toBeat me downBut...

Stacey finds himself in hot water because of decisions he has made and his friendship with T.J. A guilty conscience hounds Stacey into refusing to use a cheat sheet on his test, but when he is...

Stacey gave the coat away to T.J. In Chapter 7, we discover why Stacey isn't wearing the coat that Uncle Hammer gave to him: T.J. has it in his possession. Essentially, Stacey gave the coat to T.J....

The Logans enjoy a feast for Christmas dinner. Cassie remarks on the smell of chickens frying, bacon sizzling, and sausages being cooked. The family also makes sweet-potato pies, egg-custard pies,...

Mama takes her children to see the Berrys because she wants to impress upon them just how dangerous the world in which they live is for African Americans. Mr. Berry lies in bed in agony, horribly...

Papa has to make extra money to pay for the taxes the Logans owe on their land because the price of cotton dropped due to the Great Depression. The Logans are farmers. Even though the Logan family...

Jeremy Simms is blond with blue eyes. He walks with the Logan kids to and from the crossroads every day, even though he's apparently punished for spending time with them. He's kind and shy; he...

Mildred Taylor's novel, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, tells the story of the Logan family and their fight to retain their land and dignity in Depression era Mississippi. Three of the major events...

In Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, the tenant farmers come together to boycott the Wallaces' store because the Wallaces begin leading night raids and encouraging violent behavior at the store. The...

Stacey Logan shows courage throughout Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Although he is best-friends with T.J., he also isn’t afraid to stand up to him. When T.J. tries to cheat on the test Stacey’s...

The title Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is actually taken from a spiritual song about suffering and slavery, and the theme of that song is very relevant to the novel at large. The overarching idea...

In Chapter 5 of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mr. Simms forces Cassie to apologize to his daughter, Lillian Jean, for running into her. A rude man, Mr. Simms also pushes Cassie off the sidewalk....

Cassie says Stacey feels responsible for T.J. because he realizes that he is vulnerable. Cassie says she doesn’t really like T.J., and neither does their brother Little Man. Stacey is much more...

Mr. Morrison's family was wiped out one Christmas when he was only six years old. The year was 1876, and times were hard. The Morrison family lived in a shantytown outside the city of Shreveport....

They don't join in the plan because Mr. Granger and others retaliate against them. Papa decides that he's going to boycott the Wallace Store, which is seated on Granger Land. This turns two of the...

Cassie's father is trying to make a point about giving up in the Mildred Taylor novel, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. When Mr. Avery announces that most of the black families who have agreed to...

In Chapter 7, Stacey gives his new coat away to T.J. after T.J. makes fun of it and says that Stacey looks like a preacher while wearing it. Uncle Hammer lectures Stacey: "If you ain't got the...

The climax of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry comes when the night riders try to lynch T.J. Avery, a friend of the children who has been involved in a robbery. Stacey quickly sends the other children...

Cassie is justifiably angry and hurt when she discovers that the books her school received were discarded by the state, but, unlike Little Man, who reacts with an incoherent rage, she tries to be...

Mama teaches Cassie that respect given because it is demanded is not respect at all.Cassie is upset because after Lillian Jean Simms pushed her off the sidewalk, Big Ma made Cassie apologize to her...

Mr. Morrison is a very muscular, strong, "giant" of a man with whom Papa has worked on the railroad. Since he has lost his job, Papa has asked him to accompany him home because he needs another man...

With the historical setting of Mildred Taylor's novel as the Jim Crow South of the 1930s, there are incidents in the lives of the Logans that cause great fear in their hearts. In Chapter 3, for...

A particularly blatant and outrageous example of racial discrimination comes at the country store, Barnett Mercantile. T.J. hands the storeowner Mr. Barnett a shopping list, which he starts to...

T.J.'s first mistake is believing that RW and Melvin plan to pay for the pistol they promised to buy him. When he accompanies the brothers to the mercantile store and the three of them find the...

Mr. Morrison is a character who comes home with Cassie's father. Papa says that he is going to stay on to help them out for awhile and that he'll be paid with room, board, and a little money. Mr....

In Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mr. Avery pays a visit to the Logan family and informs them that, "They's ridin' t'night." Mr. Avery is referring to the night men, a group of white men that harass...

T.J. Avery is one of life's troublemakers. Lazy, ignorant, and proud of it, he's always getting himself into mischief of one kind or another. But even T.J. excels himself when he participates in...

Jeremy Simms is a very interesting character in the novel. As a white boy whose father is one of the group of white men that go round lynching and abusing blacks at night, we would expect him to...

In Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, T.J. Avery is Stacey’s best friend, although the rest of the Logan children are wary of him and annoyed by him. Mrs. Logan is Stacey and T.J.’s...

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is written from the point of view of a nine-year-old black girl, Cassie Logan, living in southern Mississippi in the early 1930s. By choosing to write from this...

Farming is an example of character vs. nature, and so is fire used by whites to harass that sharecroppers. A conflict is a struggle between opposing forces. There are many examples of struggles...

As usual, T. J. Avery lied and blamed someone else for his own misbehavior in Chapter 1 of Mildred D. Taylor's novel, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. T. J. had disobeyed his mother's instructions and...

Uncle Hammer's guiding principle in life is that people should always take responsibility for their actions; a man should not blame others for his own stupidity. It's a tough old world out there,...