Sarah Dunbar

Sarah Dunbar is a black senior at the newly integrated Jefferson High School. Ruth and Bobby are her younger siblings. Ruth attends Jefferson with her sister. Sarah’s parents are both members of the NAACP and strong advocates for integration. Sarah wants to have the right and privileges for which her parents fight, but she does not think it is fair that she has to endure so much poor treatment in order to obtain them; at certain points in the novel, she wishes she could avoid the white people’s hatred all together and return to her previous school, Johns High School, where she would attend college prep classes and sing solos in the choir. Before moving to Davisburg, Virginia, her family lived in Chicago.

Sarah loves to sing and joins the choir at Jefferson High School, despite her parents initial instruction not to join any extracurricular...