35 pages • 1 hour read
Chris CroweMississippi Trial, 1955
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
After their lunch, Hiram and Grampa go on a drive through the fields, and Grampa turns somber as he thinks about the lost relationship with his son. He tells Hiram how much he misses him, which saddens Hiram. They take a turn and go up towards the town called Money and Grampa says he will show Hiram how to get to their old fishing hole on the Tallahatchie River. On the way home, they stop by the county courthouse and Grampa goes into discuss business. Like when he was a young boy, Hiram goes down to visit Mr. Paul’s concessions stand and buys a root beer and chats with the older man. Mr. Paul, somewhat sarcastically, asks if his grandpa is there for “business,” then they go on to discuss the issue of desegregation. Hiram shows his ignorance to the issue and asks why wouldn’t black people want their own schools. Mr. Paul explains the terrible conditions and the overall injustice of the law. He offers a different perspective to Hiram than Grampa has, suggesting that perhaps “God put different kinds of people on earth so we could all learn to get along. Ever think about that?” (74) After Hiram and Grampa head home, he continues to contemplate on his conversation with Mr. Paul, and then his thoughts travel to Emmett. He finally thinks to himself, “maybe […] Dad’s ideas weren’t so crazy after all” (76).
Chapter 8 Summary
A few days later, Hiram runs into R.C. Rydell outside of the drugstore. R.C. suggests they go fishing just like old times, which is not a sentiment that rings nicely with Hiram. The next day, they drive in Grampa’s truck out to the river, and Hiram asks after Naomi. R.C. gets defensive about his sister, saying he watches out for her even though she can watch out for herself just fine. He sneers at the lunch Ruthanne packed for them, telling Hiram that it will “Be a cold day in hell ‘fore I eat nigger food” (81). Hiram refrains from reacting too strongly in the moment and they continue driving, eventually coming across Ronnie Remington. R.C. recalls a time he left the Remington brother stranded and naked a full town over and has a good laugh over it, which disgusts Hiram as he listens.
They finally park the truck and settle down for some fishing. Hiram begins to think about his dad and Grampa and whether or not they had used to go fishing together, and he hoped he was not acting as a substitute for his father in his good times with Grampa. An inebriated R.C. wakes him from his reverie and they get to fishing. They eat lunch, R.C. having already forgotten his resolve not to eat Ruthanne’s cooking, and, soon after, both drift off into naps under different trees. When Hiram wakes up, he notices several boys nearby messing around with one another, recognizing one of them as Emmett. Emmett waves and begins to approach Hiram, but all of his friends are actively discouraging him, since Hiram is white. Emmett ignores him, not seeing what the potential problem could be. Hiram is instantly nervous lest R.C. wake up and see him and he tries to keep them from meeting. R.C. wakes up and sees the interaction and grows furious. He approaches Emmett, threatening him. Hiram “had a feeling something real ugly was about to happen” (90), a dread that is quickly confirmed when R.C. muscles up against Emmett and wrestles him to the ground, force-feeding him fish guts. Hiram does not do anything to physically stop R.C. from torturing Emmett and feels intense shame after the matter.
Chapter 9 Summary
Back at home, Hiram tells Grampa the horrible events of the day between R.C., Emmett, and himself. Grampa’s reaction is merely to tell him that R.C. is trouble, but also that even the most foolish person should know “there is no friendship between whites and coloreds, never should be, never will be” (95). Hiram no longer wants to continue the conversation with his Grampa, so he goes to his room to think. As he ruminates further on the issues of racism and segregation, he starts to feel that maybe everything his father has been saying and warning him about was more accurate than he ever realized. A few nights later, he finally has his first face-to-face encounter with Naomi at their spot on the bridge, and she gives him a hard time for not trying to see her sooner. They catch up briefly on each other’s lives, and Hiram continues to ponder his relationship with his own father. When he returns home, R.C. emerges out of the bushes and remarks on what a good time they had the other day fishing. Hiram replies that he only recalls how R.C. tortured Emmett. That’s when R.C. tells him that Sheriff Smith has been coming around town asking questions “about some black boy from Chicago. Ole Mose Wright, the kid’s uncle, complained that a couple of local guys had been pickin’ on the boy […] I told him I didn’t know no strange niggers” (104). He sends Hiram an understood warning not to rat him out, but Hiram says he will tell the truth if he is asked. R.C. leaves him with a parting message: a threatening story about roughing up a black kid who made an inappropriate remark to a white woman up in Money. Anxious, Hiram calls the deputy, who laughs off the matter.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
After a few weeks back in Greenwood, Hiram finds himself in situations that force him to think more acutely on the issue of segregation and more generally about race relations. His conversations with Mr. Paul are quite different now that he is a young adult and Mr. Paul seems to be the only white man in Greenwood who Hiram has a relationship with where they can talk openly and honestly about the morality of these issues. Any conversation with Grampa usually results in frustration or some other tense dead end; Mr. Paul is really the first to highlight for Hiram the inherent injustices that pervade the South. Hiram starts to think in deeper ways that were not available to him before and he starts to consider some of the things his own father has said about the South and begins to soften towards him. The sadness he feels when Grampa talks about his lost relationship with Hiram’s father becomes a fate that he dreads.
Hiram’s memory about R.C. as a child makes him less excited to spend time with him as an adult but having no one else besides Grampa to go fishing with, he agrees to go. In a single day’s timeframe, he witnesses how R.C.’s behavior from childhood has only grown worse and more treacherous with age. His teasing of the Remingtons has escalated into full-blown humiliation, and before they even leave for the fishing trip, Hiram feels uncomfortable and wants to cancel. However, fear keeps him in place. Their conversation on the way to the river reveals R.C.’s ignorant social and political stances and his overall inexplicable hatred towards black people. This sets the scene for the encounter with Emmett, whom Hiram desperately tries to shield from interacting with R.C.; the unwarranted aggression and evil R.C. displays literally freezes Hiram in place, never having seen one person be so deliberately cruel to another. Paralyzed from taking any physical action to stop him, the shame and guilt Hiram feels once Emmett miserably walks away becomes the pivotal moment when he sees the divide between himself and much of the South. The conversation after, with his Grampa, brings no comfort, and he realizes that much of this struggle must be fought on his own. However, he seems to draw strength from the belief that this is the type of experience his father was referring to about the nature of Southern living.
