Uncle Tom's Children by Richard Wright (1936)
The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch
I.
Arkansas. The speaker (young Richard Wright) is engaged in a cinder war with some white boys, who have superior cover (hedges, etc.) and who throw a broken bottle that cuts his neck and necessitates three stitches. When his mother sees the cut and, asking why he didn't hide, finds out that he has been fighting, she beats him. "She would smack my rump with the stave, and while the skin was still smarting, impart to me gems of Jim Crow wisdom" (2). They soon move to Mississippi and Richard lives in a black area where he is not much in contact with whites until he finishes grammar school and needs to get a job. He is hired by an optical company in Jackson, MI where the boss inquires about his math skills and seems to say that Richard will have a chance to learn something of the trade as he works there. When Richard asks one and then the other of his coworkers Mr. Moorie and Mr. Pease to tell him about the work, they turn against him. One day Mr. Moorie tells Mr. Pease that Richard has referred to him as "Pease" and, trapped between calling one white man a liar or having referred to the other without saying "Mr." Richard promises that he will leave the factory. This is what they want and they let him go with a warning not to speak to the boss.
II.
Richard is portering in a clothing store when he sees his boss and the boss's 20 year old son, in the presence of a policeman, drag a black woman into the store and beat her. When she staggers away the policeman arrests her as a drunk. The boss and his son give Richard a cigarette to show that they would not do that to him, and when he mentions it to his black coworkers they say the woman is lucky not to have been raped along with the beating.
III.
Richard is making a delivery when one of the tires on his bicycle goes flat. A white man in a car offers him a ride, and when one of the young men in the car offers a drink he declines without saying sir. He is struck in the head with an empty whiskey bottle and falls from the car. Asked whether he wants to get back on the car he replies that he wants to walk, and one of the white men tells him that he's lucky and that if he had said that to anyone else he would have been "a dead nigger now."
IV.
Richard works as a hall-boy in a hotel where white prostitutes work. The prostitutes walk around naked in front of the bell-boys but they are not supposed to make any sign that they notice, and when Richard watches one woman walk to her dresser to get money for liquor, the man with he threatens him.
V.
One of the bell-boys at the hotel is seeing one of the black maids when he is arrested and accused of bastardy. He is forced to marry the girl, and when the baby comes the father is clearly white. A joke went around that a white cow must have scared the girl while she was pregnant, and "If you were in their presence when this explanation was offered, you were supposed to laugh" (12).
VII.
A bell-boy caught with a white prostitute is castrated and run out of town, and the others are told that he was lucky to get off so lightly.
VIII.
A white night-watchman slaps the buttock of a black maid Richard is walking home with, and then obliges Richard to say and repeat with enthusiasm that he likes it. Richard is ashamed but the girl assures him that he couldn't help it.
XI.
Richard goes to Memphis where he gets a job with another branch of the same optical firm. While there, he borrows the library card of a white Roman Catholic coworker and gets books by forging notes that say "Please let this nigger boy have the following books" (14). The white workers at this factory, which is larger and more urban than the one in Jackson, will speak the black workers but only on certain subjects not connected with race and civil rights. Richard enters an elevator carrying packages and is unable to remove his hat, which a white man does for him. He cannot thank the man because of the service it would imply on the part of the white man, but finds the usual sideways look and grin too degrading, and escapes the necessity of a response by pretending to nearly drop his packages.
I. Big Boy Leaves Home
I.
Big Boy, Buck, Lester and Bobo have skipped school and are singing, roughhousing and talking in the woods. The other boys want to go to the creek to swim and Big Boy is hesitant (Old Man Harvey hates blacks and it's on his land) but decides to join them and, running to catch up, jumps and pulls the other boys to the ground. A fight ensues and Big Boy escapes a beating by grabbing Bobo's neck and choking him until he gets the other two to stop. Big Boy explains, " when a ganga guys jump on yuh, all yuh gotta do is jus put the heat on one of them n make im tell the others t let up, see?" (24).
II.
At the watering hole, the boys hesitate again. There is a no trespassing sign, and Lester says that Old Man Harvey shot Bob for swimming there the year before. Big Boy argues that they would be in trouble just for being where they are, so they might as well go in. Bobo and Big Boy are wrestling when Lester and Buck push them in and then wade in themselves. They are in the water talking about going North someday when a white woman standing on the embankment says, "Oh!" (29). They get out of the water, covering their groins, and argue whether to try to get their clothes or to run away as they are. Big boy goes for his clothes, and Bobo goes with him. As they approach she backs up toward the tree where they have left their clothes and calls , "Jim!" (30). The woman tells Big Boy to go away and Bobo snatches the clothes. Lester and Buck come out and try to get their clothes from Bobo, and a shot rings out. Lester falls with his head landing on the woman's shoe, and Buck runs and is the next shot. Big Boy and Bobo back away as a white man in an army uniform runs toward them and asks Bertha (the white woman) if she's hurt. She doesn't answer, and the man points the rifle at Bobo who is running back and asking the man not to shoot him. Big Boy grabs the rifle and Bobo jumps on the man's back. The man lets go of the rifle and Big Boy hits him with it. When the man gets up, demands the gun and then lunges for it, Big Boy shoots. Big Boy and Bobo run.
III.
Big Boy and Bobo run together as far as the cornfields. Bobo wants to follow Big Boy, but Big Boy tells him to go home and get his folks to help him get away. He then runs home and tells his mother what has happened. His mother calls his sister Lucy, who goes to get his father Saul Morrison. Saul sends her for Brother Sanders, Brother Jenkins and Elder Peters. Brother Sanders' son Will is driving a delivery by truck to Chicago the next morning, and it is agreed that Big Boy should hide by the road in a kiln and then go with Will in the truck. As he runs from the house, he asks them to tell Bobo where he's hiding and to have him come along.
IV.
Big boy goes to the kiln and, when a six foot snake emerges from the one he has decided will be safest, he kills it with a stick and his fists. As he sits in the kilns, he remembers building them with his friends. He wishes he had his father's shotgun and imagines fending off a mob with it and killing twelve or twenty before being taken. Big Boy hears a "Hoalo!" and winders whether it is Bobo, but it is a white man searching for him. Big Boy learns from their talk that his parents' house has been burned down. A group of white men find Bobo trying to come over the hill to the kilns, and Big Boy watches as they tar and feather him and set him on fire. It begins to rain, and as they leave a dog senses Big Boy's presence and comes after him. Big Boy sinks as far as he can away from the dog at first, but then they come together and Big Boy chokes the dog.
V.
In the morning Will comes for Big Boy and hides him in the truck. Big Boy tells Will what happened to Bobo and asks for some water, which Will gives him at the next filling station. Big Boy falls asleep on the floor of the truck.
II. Down by the Riverside
I.
There is a flood, and Mann is in his house with Sister Jeff, his son Peewe, Grannie, and his wife Lulu who has been in labor for three days. He has sent Bob Cobb to sell his mule and get a boat. Bob comes back with $15 for the mule from old man Bowman, and a boat he has stolen from old man Heartfiels (who hates blacks). Mann has been hearing occasional gunshots in the distance and assumes that they are from white shooting blacks. The levees are failing, and blacks are being conscripted to fix them. Elder Murray arrives with a boat and takes Bob, Peewe and Sister Jeff with him to the hills. Mann, Lulu and Grannie get in the boat Stolen from old man Heartfiels (Heartfield) and Mann plans to bring Lulu to the Red Cross Hospital and then return the boat, which is distinctive as the only white boat in the area and so a liability.
II.
Mann rows the boat against the current past the post office and down what he is able to recognize as Pike's road. When he comes to some lights he stops and asks whether there is a telephone to call for some help for his wife. The people in the house recognize the boat as their own and yell at Mann to bring it. Henry Heartfield goes out with e flashlight and gun to shoot Mann but looks in the wrong place, and Mann shoots him when the flashlight beam is five feet from the boat. They make it to where some soldiers are stationed and get towed in to the hospital, where the they are directed to the colored entrance. The nurse feels for Lulu's pulse and calls Dr. Burrows, who tells Mann that Lulu is dead, that he should have brought her in sooner, and that the best thing for him now is to head for the hills.
III.
The soldiers commandeer Mann's boat and, asking how much it cost him, say that he'll get $35 later of the $50 he claims. Grannie and Peewee are taken in a motorboat to the hills, and some soldiers bring Mann to work with the other blacks on the levee. He asks for some water more than once but there isn't any. The boat with Mann. the soldiers and another black man is waiting to dock at the levy when a siren sounds that the levee is breaking. The other soldier calls to the driver Jim to step on it.
IV.
The soldiers' efforts turn to rescue, and twenty boat are dispatched to the Red Cross Hospital. There are not enough drivers, but the other black with Mann (Brinkley) says that he can drive. "'Is he all right?' asked the general. / 'Ah works fer Mistah Bridges,' said the boy" (99). They drive back to the hospital, where the Colonel gives Mann an axe and charges him with cutting a hole through the roof. The people in the hospital, starting with women and children, are evacuated through the roof and lowered into boats. The Colonel tells Mann that he has done well and to come see him if he gets out of this, and he will not be forgotten. Mann and Brinkley are alone in the last boat and the Colonel gives them the address of a woman and two children who have called for help. The woman is Mrs. Heartfield.
V.
Brinkley and Mann find the house, and Mrs. Heartfield has just come to the window when s surge of water moves it and wedges it between two other houses. Mann climbs in through the window and the little boy asks Mann to help his mother and then, recognizing him, cries, "It's the nigger!" Mann is considering killing them with the axe and telling Brinkley that he could not find them when the house lurches again. Brinkley is at the window now, and with him watching Mann tells the boy to get in the boat and helps out the mother and the girl. It gets light while they are in the boat, and when the little boy says "Mother? Mother . . . " she hushes him. They gain sight of the hills.
VI
They arrive at the hills and land the boat among a throng of soldiers. Mann walks away toward where the black people are, and a soldier stops him. He is afraid that the boy has told, but the soldier only wants him to take off the boots and raincoat he has been given and leave them in a tent. He goes on and a black woman offers him coffee. When he goes for another helping he sees a sudden fear in her eyes and is hit from behind. The Ralph Heartfield is there and says that, "That's the nigger that killed my father!" (116). He is brought away by the soldiers and sees the blacks looking on. "For a split second he was there among those blunt and hazy black faces looking silently and fearfully at the white folks take some poor back man away. Why don they hep me? Yet he knew that they would not and could not help him, even as he in times past had not helped the other black men being taken by the white folks to their death . . . " (117). A mob is gathering when some soldiers break it up and take him to the tent of the general. Mann insists that Heartfield shot at him first and that he did not meant to kill him, but he does not explain how he comes to have the boat. Colonel Davis is called to confirm that he took the boat from Mann. He does not answer when the General asks why he goes back to the house, and Mrs. Heartfield says that he had the axe raised over them when the house lurched and that he had meant to kill them. Colonel Davis confirms the story about what happened to the boat (its whiteness is emphasized by Ralph Heartfield as proof if its ownership) and shows the paper Mann has signed, and says that he had helped them in the hospital. A soldier asks, "When shall it be, General?" and the General has them take Mann out immediately. They march him toward the trees, twisting his arm when he falls to the ground, and when he is among the trees and a soldier lights a cigarette he runs. He is hit by the soldiers' rifle shots and, "His eyes caught a whirling glimpse of brown water and shouting white boats." When he has been shot several more times and is dead, "'You shouldn'tve run, nigger!' said one of the soldiers. 'You shouldntve run, Goddammit! You shouldntve run . . .' / One of the soldiers stooped and pushed the butt of his rifle under the body and lifted it over. It rolled heavily doen the wet slope and stopped about a foot from the water's edge; one black palm sprawled limply outward and upward, trailing in the brown current . . . " (123-4).
III. Long Black Song
I.
A woman has been home alone with her baby (Ruth) for more than a week while her partner Silas is buying things in Coldwater. Ruth cries, which is unusual for her at this time (sundown) and only stops when her mother puts her on the floor and lets her bang on a broken old clock. The woman is lonely and remembers her former lover Tom, who has been at the war for almost a year. "Yes, God; it could have been Tom instead of Silas who was having her now. Yes; it could have been Tom she was loving" (127). Remembering Tom, "She felt the tips of her teats tingling and touching the front of her dress as she remembered how he [Tom] had crushed her against him and hurt her" (128). A salesman comes to the house trying to sell a combination gramophone and clock, and the woman says they don't have any money but the music from the gramophone is beauitful. The white man (a college student in science) says that they can buy it in installments and asks when her husband will be back. She says she doesn't know and he asks for a drink. It is dark, and at the well he touches her breast reaching for the rope and then again when she holds out the gourd. When he has finished, he grabs her and she resists while he says that he will not hurt her. They have a sexual encounter that begins there by the well and then continues inside the house,
II.
The woman's name is Sarah. Silas comes home and tells her that he has sold the cotton and bought ten more acres of land, plus the cloth she wanted and some high top shoes for her. The war has just ended, and he says that Tom is in town and that a black soldier from France had been beaten there the day before. When he asks about the gramophone, she tells him that the whit man left it and would be back to talk to him about it in the morning. He sees the man's straw hat in the bedroom and when he asks what the man was doing in the bedroom and she says showing her the gramophone, he walks over to it and asks how much it costs. She says $40 but the price tag says $50, and this increases his suspicion. He is even more weary when he finds the man's pencil in the bed, and when he finally lays down he quickly jumps up in a rage having just found the man's crumpled white handkerchief. He says that he is going to beat her with a rawhide and she runs out of the house, waits until he is far enough away, and runs back for her baby Ruth. She heads toward her Aunt Peel's house, planning to stay there and also find Tom, and to head off the white man in the morning so that Silas doesn't kill him.
III.
Sarah sleeps away from the house. She is sorry for what she's done - "Silas was as good to her as any black man can be to a black woman" (147). When she hears the white man's car coming and sees Silas waiting in front of the house with his whip. She realizes that she can't warn the white man in front of Silas. There are two white men in the car when it pulls up to the house, and Sarah watches the first man arguing with Silas and then Silas beating him. The other man comes out of the car and they all wrestle on the ground, then Silas runs into the house for his gun and shoots of of the men as they run for their car. The other gets away, and Sarah runs up to Silas and throws herself at his feet.
IV.
Silas tells Sarah to get up. He throws her and the baby's things out of the house and tells her to go to her Aunt Peel's. She urges him to leave but he refuse, saying that he has worked ten years to have his farm free and now he has nothing whether he runs or stays. He stands over the dead white man and talks about how he never had a chance, and he says, "When they come fer me Ah'm gonna be here! N when they git me outta here theys gonna know Ahm gone! Ef Gaws lets me live Ahm gonna make em feel it!" (153). Sarah hears cars coming and Silas tells her to go. She does, knowing it is too late to change his mind, and when the cars arrive at the house she turns around and sees a white man fall from Silas's shot. They set fire to his house and he shoots one of the firestarters as they run, then burns inside the house without a word. "Silas had killed as many as he could and had stayed on to burn, had stayed without a murmur" (156).
IV. Fire and Cloud
I.
Reverend Dan Taylor is walking, thinking about the blacks' problems as he look at the land and remembers better times - how he had worked, and there had been plenty to eat, and his wife May had taught him to read at night, and he had been called to preach God's word. He thinks Hadley and Green might be right that they should have a demonstration. "Lawd, we coud make them ol fiels bloom ergin. We could make them feed us. Thas whut Gawd put em there fer. Plows could break and hoes could chop and hands coul pick and arms could carry . . . . On and on that could happen and people could eat and feel as he had felt with the plow handles tremblin in his hands, following old Bess, hearing the earth cracking and breaking because he wanted it to crack and break; because he willed it, because the earth was his [ . . . . ] But whuts the usa thinkin erbout stuff like this? Its all gone now . . . . And he had to go and tell his congregation the folks the Great God Almighty had called him to lead to the Promised Land 0 he had to tell them that the relief would give them no food" (160-1). He passes Deacon Smith and thinks that the man is plotting against him.
II.
Rev. Taylor's son Jimmy comes running to tell him that the mayor is at home waiting with the chief of police and another white man to see him, and that Sam was by saying that the whites were driving around warning the blacks to stay off the street because there would be trouble. Jimmy wants to get Sam, Pete, Bob, Jack and some boys together in case of trouble but Taylor tells him not to because they'll get get into trouble. Jimmy says that Hadley and Green are in the Bible Room waiting to talk with Taylor, and this frightens Taylor. Jimmy's mother is upstairs sewing and does not know what's happening.
III.
Many blacks, including Sister Harris, Sister Davis and Sister James are waiting for Taylor in the church. The mayor has told them to leave his office and not come back, and has said they will be put in jail if they march. He tells them that the relief station had said they couldn't help, and they ask what they can do and then, ashamed of his helplessness, he leads them in a prayer. When they ask what they can do he tells them that the issue is with God now and that they must have faith, and he leaves the room.
IV.
Rev. Taylor calls his wife May and has her tell the mayor that he is sick but is getting up to see him, and asks her to bring Hadley and Green to him through her room.
V.
Hadley and Green are organizing a demonstration. If there are enough people, they will not be killed, and they want Rev. Taylor to endorse the demonstration on the handbills because his doing so will guarantee a large turnout. Taylor hesitates because he says. "Ef them white folks knowed Ah wuz callin mah folks in the streets t demonstrate, they wouldnt never gimmie a chance t git something fer mag folks ergin" (175). Hadley and Green say that the march is no different than the time that Taylor led his people to demonstrate against the killing of a man named Scott, but Taylor says that that was against a mob and this is different - that Hadley and Green are asking him to march against not just some of the white people but all of them, and that this means war. Hadley says that Taylor will only be going against the whites that have money, and Taylor says that those whites have everything. He agrees to meet them at half past six (it is just after six now) to tell them what Mayor Bolton and Chief of Police Bruden say, and goes to the other room.
VI.
Rev. Taylor meets Mayor Bolton, Chief Bruden and Mr Lowe, the head of the Industrial Squad. They ask Taylor what he knows about the march, and when Bruden seems to talk down to Taylor and group him with those behind the demonstration, Mayor Bolton stops him saying, "Save that kind of talk for bad niggers . . . . " (182). Asked why they are demonstrating, Taylor tells the men that the people are hungry. When Mayor Bolton says that they won't let anyone die, Taylor says that a man has just died the other day from starvation. Mayor Bolton says that there are 25,000 people in the town and that 10,000 of them are black - it is Taylor's job to keep order among them. While Bolton goes on urging Taylor to speak to his people and tell them not to march, Taylor keeps saying that they would not march if they were not hungry. Mayor Bolton reminds Taylor of favors he has given Taylor which are in part responsible for his influence, and Taylor says that the people will march no matter what he says. Lowe gets angry and says that Taylor will end up with a rope around his neck, and when Taylor says that Go is his judge Lowe says they will be his judges if he doesn't cooperate with them. Taylor says that the blacks don't want any trouble but that they can't get work and it is against the law for them to plant anything; they have no choice but to demonstrate. Chief Bruden warns him that there will be 300 policemen waiting for anyone who does demonstrate, and Lowe says that they know he has been meeting with Hadley and Green. The three white men leave angry.
VII.
Rev. Taylor meets with Deacons Bonds, Williams and Smith. Deacon Smith denounces the Reds for being Godless, and criticizes Taylor for wanting to march with the demonstrators but not wanting to have his name on the handbill. Smith says that Rev. Taylor just wants to keep the whites on his side and make them think he had been pushed into it. Taylor says that Smith just wants to run him out of his church but says that he has been put there by God himself and will stay until God says for him to go. Deacons Bonds and Williams side with Rev. Taylor. Jimmy comes to say that there are some white men in a car outside, and when Reverend goes out to see what they wan they jump him and make him get in the car.
VIII.
The six men in the car drive Rev. Taylor over a gravel road away from town and whip him to make him take off his shirt, then whip him to make him kneel, whip him to make him pray, and then take turns whipping him, and he says "We'll git yuh white trash some day!" - they ask him to repeat this and continue whipping until he is senseless.
IX.
Rev. Taylor wakes up and puts his shirt on painfully, and then has to walk through a white neighborhood. A white woman moves to the other side of the street fifty feet away from him. A policeman stops him and he says he is a preacher who had been visiting a sick man who works for Miz Harvey. When he gets home, he wets a cloth for his back and lays down on his stomach.
X.
Rev. Taylor's son Jimmy comes in, and he tells him to shut the door and sit down. When he sees what has happened to his father he wants to get Pete, Bob, Joe and Sam but Rev. Taylor says they can't do anything alone. Jimmy tells him that Hadley and Green had been by three times and that they had said he ran out on them, and that Brother Smith had had the Deacon Board to vote him out of the church.
XI.
Rev. Taylor doesn't want his wife to come in but she has a key. May washes his back and laves him with oil. Rev. Dan Taylor, "wanted to talk to Jimmy again, to tell him about the black people. But he could not think of words that would say what he wanted to say. He would tell it somehow later on" (212).
XII.
Brother Bonds comes to say that he and his children have been beaten, as well as the two communists. Rev. Taylor tells his wife to get him a shirt, and when the door rings again they go downstairs.
XIII.
At the church, people look beaten and bruised and Deacon Smith bawls, "LOOK AT WHUT YUH DONE DONE!" (214). Jimmy tells his father that people are gathering in the playground. They are saying that they've already been beaten up, and that they want to march. Rev. Taylor sends Jimmy to round people up. Deacon Smith threatens that Rev. Taylor will never set foot in a church again if he leads the marchers to be killed, but his is overruled by the others present. As the crowd grows Rev. Taylor gets up onto a makeshift platform and says that the reason he said nothing before is that he did not know what to say, but that now he does, and tells how he was beaten for refusing to tell them not to ask for bread. He says that now he knows that God has sent down His sign to tell him how to act, and the crowd begins to move. As they near City Hall he is approached by a policeman who says the Mayor wants to see him up front. Rev. Taylor makes the mayor come to him, and Mayor Bolton does so, and tells Rev. Taylor to tell his people they can have food if they go back peacefully. He tells the Mayor to tell them himself, and Mayor Bolton climbs up on the back of an auto to do so. Rev. Taylor mumbles exultingly as he sees the Mayor asking for silence: "Freedom belongs t the strong!"(220).
V. Bright and Morning Star
I.
Aunt Sue is waiting for Johnny-Boy to come home and remembering how her faith in God had given her a way to deal with oppression by whites and their laws, and how when her sons Sug and Johnny-Boy had introduced her to Communism they had given her something just as big to take the place of her religious faith. "And day by day her sons had ripped from her startled eyes her old vision, and image by image had given her a new one, different, but great and strong enough to fling her into the light of another grace" (225). Although this transformation is supposed to have already happened, she still sings religious songs. Sug had been caught one year earlier and thrown in jail, but she was proud of him for not giving up any of his comrades. Reva, a white girl and Johnny-Boy's sweetheart, arrives to tell Aunt Sue that the police have found out about that night's meeting and the Johnny-Boy must tell everyone to keep away. Reva has run a mile through the rain and mud, and must run back.
II.
Johhny-Boy comes home tired and hungry, and his mother gives him a pillow and his supper. When he is almost dry, she tells him that Reva has been around and that Lem (Reva's father) had had a visit from the sheriff that day. Sue thinks that Johnny-Boy is too trusting and eager to invite whites into the party, but he says that the party needs both blacks and whites and that if he's too careful it won't grow. He gives her some money that belongs to the party and she says to keep it since he might have to go away - she'll pay back the party money out of a dollar a week she's been saving for Sug while he's been in jail. They burn the papers in his pocket and she gives him soda water and fixes his clothes to stave off a cold.
III.
Sue wakes to the sound of posse in her house talking about taking her cornbread and how blacks make good jam. She tells them to get out and someone throws water from the pot of greens in her face. The sheriff says that they are only trying to help her, then threatens to teach her, and finally slaps her. They ask her where Johnny-Boy is and then try to get her to tell them where the meeting is being held. As they are leaving she shouts that they didn't get what they wanted and never would, and the sheriff comes back and hits her hard in the face.
IV.
Sue wakes up slowly seeing a white blur. Her name is called and the blur resolves into the white man Booker, who joined the party that week. She is afraid of him because he's white but he takes her inside, gives her a cold cloth for her head, and tells her that Johnny-Boy has been caught and that they are at Foley Woods trying to make him tell where the rest of the comrades are. She says that Johnny-Boy won't tell but knows that someone has to go and warn the others. She wants to go and warn them but she is too weak, and Booker say to tell him who they are and that he will go. After she tells him she starts to wonder how he knows that they sheriff was watching Lem's house, and when she asks if Reva told him he says yes, that that was it. She doesn't know when he leaves.
V.
Reva comes to Sue's house to see about Johnny-Boy and says that her father said to watch out for Booker, that he's a stool. Sue can't tell Reva about Johnny-Boy and about what she's told Booker, so she convinces the girl to go to sleep and then decides to go and warn the comrades herself. The sheriff had told her to get a sheet for Johnny-Boy's body and she does as her excuse, wrapping his gun in it. If he wades across the river, she thinks she can beat Booker.
VI.
Sue is hailed by two white men who ask what she's doing there, and she says she's brought a sheet for her son's body and asks them to take her to the sheriff. They make fun of her for her faith in her son and for believing in a revolution. "'Lissen, ol nigger woman, yuh stand there wid yo hair white. Yuh got bettah sense than t blieve tha niggers kin make a revolution . . . ' / 'A black republic,' said the other one, laughing" (256). Sue plans to hang around long enough so that she can shoot Booker and so undo her mistake.
VII.
They bring Sue to where Johnny-Boy is being interrogated, and she wishes she could tell him why she's there but can't in front of them. They tell her to tell him to talk and she says he won't, so they put his legs over a log and break his kneecaps. They tell her again to speak with him and when she doesn't the sheriff bursts his eardrums so that he can't hear. Booker arrives then, saying that he knows them all and that the old - and she shoots him through the head. She tries to shoot Johnny-Boy too, but they take the gun away from her. They kill him first and then shoot her in the chest. She repeats a version of what she had said to the Sheriff from her porch. "Yuh didnt git whut yuh wanted! N yuh ain gonna nevah git it! Yuh didnt kill me; Ah come here by mahsef" (263).
Bibliography
Wright, Richard. Uncle Tom's Children. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008 (1936).