Chapter 4 - Fight for Power

Summary: Ma let her children to skip their school for the first week. There are busing. Black students ride in the bus to come Southie. Michael saw everything so horrible. He saw white people are angry a lot and they try to hurt black students but there are polices to protect them. Many polices beat some people who yelled, fight, and hurt black students. Also They threw rocks at bus's windows. Mary, Kathy, and Frankie begged ma to skip the first day of school. They are excited about outside because there is a nice weather and a lot of polices and black people from other school for busing. Ma yelled about she loves black people. There are a lot of people to be crowd and Michael saw the black children look so scared and nervous. people threw glasses, rocks, and bricks at the bus and some houses. The bus's windows are destroy and messy. On 83 page, "Smash! A burst of flying glass and all that rage exploded." Ma keeps her young children to stay home and stay away many dangerous things from outside. People start to scream, "Fight for Power!" They beat kids and the street is messy and crowd. Kathy and Frankie disappeared because there are too much of people and hard to find them. Finally They arrive and back home to be safe with ma. Kathy starts to have boyfriend and socialize with boys a lot. Ma visits Davey at the mental hospital. On the street, some people protest and screamed, 'Stop Busing!"

Quotations: On 79 page, there are two important quotes! Helen King wrote these quotes.

The first quote called, "Twas on a dreary Thursday morn' As the bus rolled along. They came up to our peaceful town with orders from the law: desegregate and integrate or you will pay the price of loss of pride, humility, and even your children's lives." That quote means busing come over in Southie so quiet. They must go for busing if they won't then they will go to the jail or get into the trouble. Also it cause people to lost their pride and peace. They are be together now.

The second quote called, "But Southie's spirit was so strong, they made us a barrack town. They took their horses, dogs, and guns and set them on the crowd. The TPF, their sticks did crack on the young and old alike. But united still, our spirits high, we'll fight for freedom's right." That quote means polices comes and there are crowd a lot. They often hurt old and young people in there so horrible. But Southie is so peace and Southie people will fight for freedom's right.

My Opinion: I think this chapter is very interesting and scared because it talked about busing a lot. Something there are horrible for some people in this chapter. When I read it, I feel so sad because I feel bad for black children who were suffering from busing. I think they are scared and nervous a lot when they arrive to the white school. I am sure that they feel so hurt and depressed when people try to hurt them and threw rocks at their bus's windows. I really dislike that people yelled, fight, and paid disrespect to everyone on the street. But I like to hear that some people keeps to protest about stop busing. But I dislike the idea about busing because it causes so worse to people because they start to complain and fight.