how is discrimination shown in roll of thunder hear my cry?

In this essay I am going to be writing about Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry and about how discrimination is shown in this book.This book was written in 1976 by Mildred D.Taylor. This story is a book of courage, love and pride. This book shows discrimination by having two separate schools one for black people and one for whites. Taylor was born in Jackson, Mississippi but moved when she was quite young. Most of her novels were based on stories she heard from her childhood. Mildred D. Taylor went to a college were she done a black studies course and that’s why she has all this knowledge today.

This book really gives you an insight of how things were in Mississippi, 1936 and how people were treated. Back then there was a lot of discrimination especially in Mississippi and almost all of it was targeted at black people. For example, the children would go to school everyday but the black people had to walk to school and the white people got a school bus funded by the government in Mississippi. As well as having to walk to school, the school bus full of white people would splash them every single day on purpose. The bus driver would try to entertain his passengers. It was as if they were watching a lion in a cage.

Back then white folks thought they were superior over blacks. It shows this in the book when Lillian Jean (a young girl the same age as Cassie) told her to get down onto the road because she was getting in the way of “decent white folk”. That shows how black people were thought of in the 1930s. It’s disgusting that a girl could be treated like that in the middle of a market and nobody even tried to stop it. Back then white folks had so much power that Cassie was made to say sorry to Lillian Jean for getting in the way of “decent white folks” and Big Ma couldn’t do anything about it because she knows the consequences of disobeying a white person.

It is really good to have books like this because it tells you about the struggles that black people had to deal with back in the 1930s. People were completely oblivious to the fact that black people were humans. That is shown in the book when Cassie went to the Barnett store to get some groceries and Mr.Barnett went to do everybody’s order instead of Cassie. So Cassie said “uh…’scuse me, Mr Barnett, ” really politely”I think you forgot, but you was waiting on us, before you was waiting on this girl here, and we been waiting a good while now for you to get back.” Mr Barnett looked at her strangely and turned around and got back to finishing the other girls order, totally oblivious that Cassie was speaking to him she said  “y-you was helping us, “stepping back from the counter in fright. Mr Barnett replied in a low angry voice and said “Well you just get your little black self back over there and wait some more.” This is a key example of discrimination because he let the white folks push in front of them and serve them first like they were high-class.

My conclusion is that discrimination is wrong. And this book shows me how black people were treated back in the 1930s and gives you an insight of what they had to go through. I think this book gives you a lot of knowledge about how people were treated in 1930s. Back then white people thought they were superior and this book allows you to see how black people dealt with discrimination. They acted in that way because they wanted to feel powerful. This book gives you a better perception of how the black folk dealt with things and how they had to live with caution. I think Mildred D.Taylor has done a good job of giving us an historical account of black life in the 1930s.