Study Questions

1. What was the name of the town near the Bottom?

2. Where was the town?

3. What grew on the Bottom before the spread of the town?

4. What were the names of the three businesses that the townspeople planned to destroy?

5. What does the word raze mean?

6. What were the two rewards the white slave owner promised the slave for completing the chores?

7. What was the name of the hilly land where the black people lived?

8. How did the hilly land get its name?

9. Who was the little girl introduced in the chapter who grew into a woman in the Bottom?

10. What did the white people below think about the hilly land?

Answers

1. The name of the town was Medallion.

2. The town was in a valley in Ohio.

3. Before the spread of the town, trees grew on the Bottom.

4. The names of the three businesses that the townspeople planned to destroy were Reba’s Grill, the Time and a Half Pool Hall, and Irene’s Palace of Cosmetology.

5. The word raze means to destroy or to level.

6. The two rewards the white slave owner promised the slave for completing the chores were freedom and a parcel of land.

7. The hilly land where the black people lived was the Bottom.

8. The hilly land got its name because the slave owner said that the land was the bottom of Heaven.

9. The little girl introduced in the chapter and who grew into a woman in the Bottom is Sula.

10. The white people eventually viewed the hilly land as attractive.