What happens to T. J. in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry?

In contrast to the Logan children, T. J. Avery lacks integrity and loyalty; he is capricious, spending time with the Logans, but reporting Mrs. Logan as responsible for the boycott against the Wallace store; friendly with Stacey Logan, but later telling the Logan boys that the white Simms boys are superior to Stacey and his family.. Additionally, out of his anger, he tells the white people that Mrs. Logan is a poor teacher because he was caught cheating, causing trouble for Mrs. Logan.

Later, in Chapter 11, after rejecting the Logan boys for the Simmses, T. J. finds himself exploited by the boys as part of a robbery in Strawberry. The Simms boys cruelly beat Mr. and Mrs. Barnett when they attempt to stop them.  The frightened T. J. rides back with them, but when he threatens to tell on R. W. and Melvin as the culprits in the robbery, they beat him unmercifully.  T. J. seeks shelter and help at the Logans, confessing what has happened to them.

Afraid to go home on his own, Stacey accompanies him and the other Logan children come to his aid. But just as they leave T. J. at his door, Kaleb Wallace and his brother Thurston arrive, demanding that T. J. come outside. R.W. and Melvin Simms pretend to have witnessed T. J. commit the robbery when they went to town to shoot pool. And, when the Avery family is dragged outside and the pistol found on T. J., he is kicked so hard in his already swollen stomach that he cries out in terrible pain and falls upon the ground. The white men want to hang him, but Mr. Jamison and the sheriff arrive.

The situation is very tense, but David Logan diffuses it by setting the fields on fire, bringing all the people around to help in stopping it. After the fire is extinguished, Stacey asks what will happen to T.J.

"He's in jail right now....He could possibly go on the chain gang...."

But, Stacey worries that T.J. may be put to death for the murder of Mr. Barnett. Cassie narrates, 

What had happened to T.J. in the night I did not understand, but I knew it would not pass. And I cried for those things which had happened in the night and would not pass.

T.J. Avery becomes a victim of the injustice of the Wallaces and those of their ilk. 

What did T.J. do in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and why might he have done it?

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 the robbery of Barnett Mercantile with the Simms brothers.

The robbery ends with the death of Mr. Barnett, hit over the head in the course of the hold-up by one of the Simms brothers. Although T.J. wasn't directly responsible for Mr. Barnett's death, his involvement in the robbery will land him in very serious trouble indeed.

So why did T.J. do such a terrible thing? As we've already seen, he's a serial troublemaker, and so there's a horrible sense of inevitability about his participation in an armed robbery. Also, T.J. had no time whatsoever for Mr. Barnett, a thoroughly unpleasant racist and white supremacist who seems to revel in humiliating and degrading Black people when they come to his store. In an earlier interaction with T.J., Mr. Barnett blatantly ignored the young man to serve white customers.

One can also attribute T.J.'s participation in the robbery to a deep-seated desire for a sense of belonging, a need to be part of something bigger than himself. Rejected by virtually everyone in the local community, T.J. most probably feels that being part of a criminal gang will give him the sense of solidarity that he needs and which his current life patently lacks.

What did T.J. do on the night he got in trouble in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry?

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 store closed, the brothers enlist T.J.'s help in breaking in. T.J. helps them but is wholly unprepared for the brothers' acts of violence.

When T.J. threatens to expose the Simms brothers (RW and Melvin) for stealing the pearl-handled pistol from the Barnett store and for attacking the Barnetts, the brothers proceed to beat up T.J. to within an inch of his life.

After beating T.J. up, the brothers fling T.J. into the back of their truck and make their way to the pool hall down the street. T.J. is hurt so badly that it is a full hour before he is able to crawl out of the truck and make his way home. He gets a ride with a farmer who is headed for Smellings Creek and gets off at the intersection after Soldiers Bridge. He does this in order to avoid running into the Simms brothers should they take the Jackson Road home.

However, T.J. is hurt so badly that he can't make it home by himself. He stops over at the Logan home, and Stacey tells him that he will help him get home. Cassie protests and insists on coming along. In the end, Stacey, Cassie, Little-Man, and Christopher Logan all accompany T.J. home.

At the Avery home, T.J. begs the Logan kids to keep a watch out for him until he gets inside safely. However, no sooner does T.J. get inside when two pick-ups and four cars drive into the yard. The Wallace brothers, the Simms brothers, and other men get out from their vehicles and proceed to physically terrorize the entire Avery family. The Simms brothers are only there to cover up their own culpability in the robbery affair.

When Mr. Jamison shows up and tells the brothers to leave the matter in the hands of the law, the Wallace brothers threaten to lynch T.J. and Stacey as well. Cassie goes home to fetch her father and Mr. Morrison in order to provide some back-up for Mr. Jamison. The aftermath of the whole affair is that T.J. eventually gets sent to jail. The novel ends on a sad note; the implication is that T.J. will almost certainly be tried, held solely responsible for the robbery, and sentenced to a harsh fate.

How did T.J. get out of his punishment in the first chapter of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry?

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 had visited the Wallace General Store "dancin' room." Cassie's mother told T. J.'s mother about it, and T. J. knew he would "get whipped" when he got home. But T. J. had a plan: He blamed his younger brother, Claude, claiming that Claude sneaked up to the store to get some free candy. T. J.'s mother believed his story, and instead of being punished, T. J.'s mother " 'bout wore him (Claude) out." Claude didn't squeal on his brother, because he was more afraid of T. J. than he was of his mother.

How did T.J. get out of his punishment in "Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry"?

Well, T.J. gets into trouble a lot, so I am not sure which time you are speaking about.  However, there is a similarity to all the ways that T.J. avoids punishment - every time, it is a combination of his own dishonesty and the protection of others.  For example, when his mom finds out that he went to the Wallace's store, where he isn't supposed to go, he lies and says he was just picking Claude up.  Claude supports this lie, because he is intimidated by his brother.

When Stacey gets caught with the class notes, T.J. lies by not admitting that he was the one cheating.  Stacey refuses to rat him out, and gets into trouble instead of T.J.

This goes on throughout the story, but backfires on T.J. at the end.  The white people, eager for a fight, won't believe T.J. when he does tell the truth about the robbery.  They insist on believing that he was with black boys, and a riot ensues.  Then, the boys that were with T.J. lie and say that T.J. is the one who murdered the shopkeeper.  But, of course, T.J. is saved from a lynching by the protection of others - Papa deliberately sets fire to the land to distract the maddening crowd.  All is not perfect for T.J. in the end, however, as he does go to jail for his crime. 

"What happened to T.J. in the night I did not understand, but I knew that it would not pass. And I cried for those thing which had happened in the night and would not pass."

What incident in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry clearly reveals T. J.'s character?

In addition to the two incidents of cheating in school, several other scenes give us a good idea about the character of T. J. Avery in Mildred Taylor's novel, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. T. J. is an attention seeker of huge proportions, and his cocky, know-it-all attitude is bound to get him in big trouble eventually. T. J. is given Stacey's treasured coat (a present from his Uncle Hammer) after he repeatedly insults his friend about its bulky fit; after T. J. gets the coat, however, he brags constantly about it. This was his plan all along--to take advantage of his "friend."

Later, he rats out his teacher, Mrs. Logan, after she catches him cheating a second time. She loses her job when T. J. informs people at the Wallace store about the altered textbooks and her teaching outside the material in the books. But his most telling incident of bad character comes when he agrees to join the Simms boys in their break-in of the Barnett's store in Strawberry. Although T. J. does not result to violence himself, both of the Barnetts are beaten and Mr. Barnett eventually dies. T. J. is nearly lynched by a gang of angry "night riders" before being saved by the quick thinking of David Logan.