The Glory Field

Part 5 begins in Johnson City, South Carolina. Abby’s grandson, Tommy Lewis, is playing basketball for the Curry Cougars against Delaney High School. Delaney is the biggest black school in Johnson City, and the favorite to win the All-City Tournament. Curry wins the tournament as a result of Tommy’s play at the end of the game.

After the game, Coach Smith introduces Tommy to Leonard Chase, a white man who used to play for Johnson City State. Chase invites Tommy and his girlfriend, Mandy McKinnon, to his house for iced tea. He asks Tommy if he would be willing to skip his last year of high school to attend State as one of the first African Americans at the university: “We want to put together a group of young people we can bring in quietly, without a lot of commotion […] What we want to do is to get the right Negroes and get things prepared” (220). Chase believes that he can secure a full scholarship to pay for Tommy’s education but warns Tommy: “It’s not going to be easy. I won’t feed you any lies. A lot of people aren’t going to like Negroes going to school with whites, and that’s just a fact you and I have to live with” (220).

Back home, Tommy’s mother, Virginia, is skeptical about him skipping his final year of high school to go to college, but his father, Robert, supports Chase’s plans for his son. As Tommy lays in bed, almost asleep, the telephone rings. Skeeter Jackson, his fifteen-year-old white friend, has been bitten by a rattlesnake and needs Tommy’s father to take him to the hospital. Robert and Tommy take Skeeter to a white hospital, and the two Lewis men must sit on boxes outside the entrance doors. As they wait, they discuss Tommy’s future in college. Robert sees it as progress for blacks. A doctor comes out to them to say that Skeeter will be ok but must stay in the hospital overnight.

Back in the Lewis home, Tommy, Mrs. Lewis and Jennie Epps are chatting about a racist teacher at Curry High School. Jennie is a schoolfriend of Tommy’s. She is in love with him and constantly tells him that they will be married with children one day. Reverend McKinnon also drops by the Lewis home, with his daughter, Mandy. The Reverend is worried as the Ku Klux Klan have made an announcement in the papers that they will be holding a demonstration on the same day as a march planned by the local black community. Sheriff Moser wants the black march to be called off, but the organizers have refused. The Reverend wants Robert to lead the march, and for the Lewis family to attend.

That night, Tommy goes to work at the local Five-and-Dime. The manager, Miss Robbins, and an employee, Jed Sasser, are discussing the upcoming black march, and the attendance of Martin Luther King Jr. Miss Robbins and Jed believe that the races should not mix. Blacks are allowed to eat in Miss Robbin’s store, but they are not allowed to sit up to the counter. Chase calls Tommy later to tell him that the college trustees are looking at the applications of four black students, including Tommy’s. Chase warns Tommy not to take part in any of the upcoming demonstrations, or to get into any trouble.

Later that night, Jennie visits him and says she has a scholarship to attend Meharry Medical College. She also has news that King Jr. will no longer be attending the march. Tommy is conflicted. He wants to go to Johnson State University, but also believes he should be taking part in the march.

The following day, Tommy heads into Johnson City and watches both of the demonstrations from a distance. When he heads back home, Skeeter is at his house, having been brought there after being badly beaten for taking part in the black demonstration. The next morning, Tommy attends a news conference headed by Sheriff Moser. He takes the shackles worn by his ancestor Muhammad Bilal. When the Sheriff says that there were no injuries at the march, Tommy chains himself to the Sheriff. He is sent to jail for the day.

Tommy learns that Leonard Chase can no longer help him get into Johnson State; his parents, however, are proud of his actions, and he knows that he did something significant.