Summary

In this chapter, Ward’s family moves to a single-wide trailer on the land her mother purchased. Her father moves to New Orleans in hopes there will be more job opportunities there.

Ward begins high school and is the only Black girl in the private school. Ward experiences several instances of racism at school including a girl asking her to put “nigger braids” in her hair, boys joking about lynching, and a boy telling racist jokes in a classroom and taunting her to tell “honky jokes.” Incidents of racism are very common in her school, but she still doesn’t know how to react to them. Students see her as different because of the color of her skin and they see her as inferior.

Ward’s mother takes the children to see their father in New Orleans on the weekends. She brings...