The Bus Sabotage Incident in Roll of Thunder, Hear by Cry

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The Bus Sabotage Incident in Roll of Thunder, Hear by Cry

The bus sabotage incident is one of the acts which clearly reflect the

major most theme of the novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Racism. We

see how the black children are being cruelly treated and dealt with by

the white children's school bus. This incident doesn’t only show us

racism on an individual or personal level but indirectly we also

notice that racism on a national level is also being played. This is

because if we notice that the black children are walking on foot to

school while the white children go to school by bus. This is because

the government doesn’t give the black school enough money to buy a

bus.

However, the incident takes place in late October, when the rainy

season had started. One day, while the Logan children are walking to

school, they are forced to jump into a muddy ditch to save themselves

from the speedy white children's school bus which was about to hit

them. From one of the windows of the bus, one white child yells at

them," Nigger" and "mud eater". The children are all angry at this and

promise to take revenge. They are all frustrated especially Little

Man. Stacey, the eldest of them all, is the one who plans for the

revenge. He asks them to meet in this place where they were forced to

go in the mud during lunch time. They go out to the road and dig a

ditch with the help of shovels. Soon this ditch becomes filled with

rain water. That afternoon, the bus falls into their trap. It gets

stuck in the ditch which causes the breaking of its axle and water

logging the engine. Its repairing would take weeks. The bus driver

tells the white children,

" All y'all gonna be walkin' for at least two weeks by the time we get

this thing hauled outa here and up to strawberry to get fixed".

Chapter 3 pg. 55

Knowing this, the children get happy that their plan worked out as

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