How is racial injustice shown in Roll of thunder, hear my cry

How is racial injustice shown in ‘Roll of thunder, hear my cry’

Racial injustice is discrimination against an individual as a result of the colour of their skin and is expressed in a variety of ways in ‘Roll of thunder, hear my cry’ because the author Mildred D Taylor wants to show how hard life was in the 1930s at Mississippi for black skinned people. The author achieves this by using a range of language techniques, for example metaphors, informal language and sensory imagery that creates an atmosphere we can empathize with. Cassie, who is the protagonist, looks after her family in any way possible. At the start she doesn’t know much about the ‘devilish night men’ but as injustice becomes worse, she can see they aren’t very friendly.

Throughout the first few chapters, Cassie and her brothers are petrified to learn that anyone could treat black people the way the Berries had been treated. The idea of someone harming someone else due to their skin colour is very frightening to these children and isn’t something the white children would worry about. So from an early age, black skinned children had to identify that they couldn’t become friends with white people.

In the story, there are two segregated schools. Jefferson High for white children and Great Faith for black children. The children attend school everyday barefoot because their school doesn’t have a bus but Jefferson high has two. This made Cassie’s younger brother, little man think. ‘Why does our school have no bus but Jefferson high have two?’ showing that little man doesn’t quite know what is happening. The council gave a large amount of money to white schools and a lot less to black schools most likely because they didn’t like black people. The books that Cassie and ...

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...y in the chapters throughout the book. Life for the black community was extremely hard and can be portrayed very well in this book. It had affected people tremendously shown by the detailed context. The family had been also effectively been shown and we can empathize because of this. Black people had been treated in awful conditions and would’ve still happened today if it weren’t for people like Cassie who stood their grounds. In todays society, we live in a much more multi-cultural world where respect is shown to everyone no matter of their colour. At the end of the book, T.J had to go to a chain gang for something that was not his fault. Thankfully, chain gangs do not exist anymore and so doesn’t slavery. Our world has recognized that everyone is human and everyone has rights. Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry is a great book to show how life was for coloured people.