Chapter 30 Summary

Forty Klansmen have gathered at the cabin in the woods, donning white robes and hoods, encouraged by their leader, Stump Sisson. They clamber into vehicles and head for town to launch their peaceful, permitted demonstration. The town is all aflutter. No one now alive has ever witnessed a KKK march in Clanton, and Ozzie is nervous. The forty white-robed marchers circle the courthouse and gather around a podium on the lawn where reporters hastily set up microphones and cameras. Young black men gather under an oak tree, and Ozzie stations himself there while his men work the crowd.

As Jake watches from the clerk's office window, Sisson reveals his identity as Mississippi's Imperial Wizard. The crowd of blacks inches closer and grows quickly, now outnumbering the Klansmen ten to one. Ozzie and six deputies step between the two groups as Sisson shouts into...