let the circle be unbroken by mildred taylor

After a moment she says Cassie is lucky to have family and friends she and Mama are pretty lonely. She says it is wonderful when she and her Mama are out because being thought of as white lets you do anything. Cassie sniffs that she wouldn’t cry over it. Mama tells her she has a choice: she can remain here and abide by the rules, or she can leave.Īfter Mama is gone, Suzella asks Cassie if she’d like her to go home. Suzella says she is not colored, and that she had made a promise to herself a long time ago that she would never marry a white man like her own mother did. Mama says that if she did not say she was colored, then it was the same thing as saying she was white. Suzella defends herself and says she did not say she was white. For a moment Cassie wonders about the ethics of telling her mother about Suzella and Stuart, but she does so anyway. Mama smiles and says that someday they will be close again and she ought not to worry. At one point he gently chastises Little Man for using the word ‘gal’ because it is one that white men use for colored women.Ĭassie goes to Mama and complains about Stacey.

Russell agrees to go with him to a meeting in a few nights.Ĭassie tries to talk to Stacey about Suzella, but he will not hear it. Dube is pleased because he has always admired Russell. Russell, ever kind and open, says that’s not what he meant. Dube blushes and yes, but adds that he is not an Uncle Tom. Dube joins them and talks of the union as well.

Back at home, Russell is chatting with Mama and Big Ma, and talk turns to the union. When Cassie speaks up Stuart shushes her.Īfter Stuart leaves, Suzella can see that Cassie and her younger brothers are visibly angry. She demurs but continues to pretend she is white. He says he’d like to take her out and call on her at home.

He asks with whom she is stayingh, and before Cassie can say anything Suzella tells him her name and says she is visiting from New York. Walking home, Stuart Walker and his friends drive by, and Stuart stops to talk to Suzella. Dube joins them and tells them he heard something from the union men that is quite scandalous: the big landowners like Granger and Montier had overplanted their own lands and were told someone was coming to inspect them, so they told their sharecroppers they’d have to pull up their crops in order for them to meet the stipulations of the AAA. Some of the boys wonder about trying to get CCC jobs. Other people’s fields are plowed up the Logans are lucky that theirs is not.

Let the circle be unbroken by mildred taylor