Of Bitches and Wives
- One night, a fellow civil rights worker named Tommy Odds is shot while leaving a church. Although Tommy survives, he ends up losing "the lower half of his arm" (2.17.2).
- Truman arrives at the hospital to cheer up his friend with a bottle of wine. When he gets to the room, Truman mentions Lynne and Tommy calls her a guilty "white bitch" (2.17.7).
- This throws Truman for a loop. Although he wants to defend his wife, Truman can't get Tommy's words out of his mind.
- Truman remembers how Tommy Odds would hang out at pool halls to gather support. Although it took him months to gain the locals' trust, he managed to register everyone from young pool hustlers to street prostitutes to devout old folks.
- After celebrating their success, Tommy, Truman, and Lynne found themselves being followed by a car. Luckily, Tommy's crew showed up and kept them safe. To Truman, this memory proves that Lynne is guilty of something—what exactly, he doesn't know.
- Caught in his thoughts, Truman drops the wine and it shatters. He leaves, telling Tommy that he'll return. Although Tommy never said it outright, Truman feels like his friend was telling him to dump Lynne.
- Truman considers marrying a black woman. This is actually a big thing in pop culture at the moment—Truman can think of several celebrities who exchanged their white ladies for a "shiny new black wife" (2.17.32).
- Many of the Mississippi locals were downright scared of Lynne when they first met her. They were so terrified of her that they "did not even see her as a human being but as some kind of large, mysterious doll" (2.17.39).
- Lynne was able to win them over with time. Despite this, she is no longer welcome in the Movement—she isn't even allowed to march anymore.