Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is a classic that is taught in schools all over the world. This book, written by Mildred D. Taylor, highlights the struggles of an African American family in the south during the 1930’s.

The Logan family regularly faces racism in their day to day lives due to the Jim Crow Laws and stereotypes in the south. The evil prejudices also added onto the Great Depression in America and made it worse. This story is relevant to today’s times because of recent fights for equality in our country.

The time period takes place before the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King JR. There was no help for the black community. The systematic racism in America is shown in the novel when black families have to work extra hard for their money and success whereas white families can live normal lives. Another example is segregation. Whites are seen as superior and get public transport to school when young African Americans are forced to take the long walk on the cold, wet streets just to get their education.

Mr. Morrison lost his job after getting in a fight with whites but it wasn’t his fault.

Since there aren’t many white people who are friendly with black people, no one decides to stick up for him so he is unrightfully laid off from his duties. I found this quite disturbing and sad that our country once hated others just because of their skin color, something they can’t control. Being born black in America during this time was dangerous as they were often targeted for lynchings and were systematically at a disadvantage.

As the years have gone by, life for many African Americans has, thankfully, progressed, but we still see problems today. A white person who was friendly with the blacks in this story was a boy named Jeremy.

Jeremy walks to school with the black kids instead of taking the bus with the white ones. A result of this is that he would get bullied at school. Hatred of both races is seen when Papa tells Stacey that she shouldn’t hang out with Jeremy anymore because he’s white and “white folks mean trouble.”

I’m not comparing this quote to the brutalities that black men and women faced during these times, but it is relevant to show that both sides felt the same. The feelings for the black people probably just came about because they have gotten the bad end of the stick for many years and were sick of it.

I cannot pretend to know what it feels like to be black in America because I am white, but after doing research and watching the news all the time it’s hard to not see what they go through.

It makes me nauseous to think about being scared for my life just because of how I look. The way that this country seems to be headed looks like life in America will start to be a lot better for everyone.

Life in the 30s for black people was extremely hard and painful. Hopefully we never see something like that in America ever again so we can start loving each other again.