Chapter 1
A white man had been killed during a robbery, and though two of the robbers had been killed on the spot, one had been captured, and he, too, would have to die. (1.1)
Chapter 2
"I don't want them to kill no hog," she said. "I want a man to go to that chair, on his own two feet." (2.29)
Chapter 3
"I have no idea." He stared at me, and I realized that I had not answered him in the proper manner. "Sir," I added. (3.45)
Chapter 4
There, instead of houses and trees, there were fishing wharves, boat docks, nightclubs, and restaurants for whites. There were one or two nightclubs for colored, but they were not very good. (4.8)
Chapter 5
"They're going to sit him in a chair, they're going to tie him down in with straps, they're going to connect wires to his head, to his wrists, to his legs, and they're going to shoot electricity th...
Chapter 6
I had come through that back door against my will, and it seemed that he and the sheriff were doing everything they could to humiliate me even more by making me wait on them. (6.47)
Chapter 7
Finally, when he felt that he had inspected enough mouths and hands, he gave the school a ten-minute lecture on nutrition. Beans were good, he said. [. . .] And exercise was good. In other words, h...
Chapter 8
He hated himself for the mixture of his blood and the cowardice of his being, and he hated us for daily reminding him of it. (8.34)
Chapter 11
"Just a old hog they fattening up to kill for Christmas." (11.55)
Chapter 13
When I came back from the university, I told her that I didn't believe anymore and I didn't want her to try forcing it on me. (13.8)
Chapter 15
Vivian had met and married a dark-skinned boy while attending Xavier University in New Orleans. She had not told her people about the wedding, because she knew that they would be opposed to it. [....
Chapter 17
Of the three of them at the jail, I figured he was the most likely to be honest with me. He was nearer my age, and he seemed better educated than the chief deputy or the sheriff. And I had heard fr...
Chapter 19
Next year it would be the same, and the year after that, the same again. Vivian said things were changing. But where were they changing? (19.71)
Chapter 20
How do people come up with a date and time to take life from another man? Who made them God? (20.61)
Chapter 21
"We black men have failed to protect our women since the time of slavery. We stay here in the South and are broken, or we run away and leave them alone to look after the children and themselves." (...
Chapter 22
"You go'n buy that?" I looked around at the short, stout, powdered-faced white woman. "Yes, ma'am."
Her face changed, but only a little. (22.89-92)
Chapter 23
I felt like someone who had just found religion. (23.124)
Chapter 24
"I want you to show them the difference between what they think you are and what you can be." (24.40)
Chapter 25
Since emancipation, almost a hundred years ago, they would do any kind of work they could find to keep from working side by side in the field with the n*****s. (25.6)
Chapter 26
"One day I'll bring flowers to the graveyard," she said. (26.113)
Chapter 27
"I lie at wakes and funerals to relieve pain." (27.120)
Chapter 28
"Y'all asking a lot, Mr. Wiggins, from a poor old n***** who never had nothing." (28.63)
Chapter 29
they got a moon out ther an I can see the leves on the tree but I aint gon see no mo leves after tomoro (29.27)
Chapter 30
The man held the door open for the woman, but she would not go inside, and Clay would not dare go through the door until the white people did. (30.8)
Chapter 31
"I don't know what you're going to say when you go back in there. But tell them he was the bravest man in that room today." (31.90)