Overview

This book evokes a time and place that is central to the American experience, a past to be remembered. This simple and direct narrative of family values and connections to the land is full of description. Land ownership bonded a black family to its white neighbors in segregated southern Mississippi in the 1940s. The author's father and brothers served in segregated armed forces to protect their country, and returned home to a segregated society. Working the land gave its workers identity, pride, and a feeling of competence. Education provided independence and freedom, and religion was the glue that held the family together.