Second Short Quiz – Prologue + Chapters 1-7

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No Table of Contents is provided – at least not in the Hard Copy of “Up Home.” Accordingly, the following is offered:

Prologue – vii – x

Part One – East Texas

1 – Crossroads – 3
2 – Mis Fannie and Mr. Ike – 16
3 – Greater New Hope – 34
4 – Latexo – 50
5 – Miss Ida Mae – 67-73

Part Two – Fifth Ward

6 – Bloody Fifth – 77
7 – Canaan – 97
8 – Black Antigone – 122
9 – Community – 141-151`

Part Three – The World

10 – Fair Dillard – 155
11 – World’s Apart – 173
12 – Commencement – 186-199

Epilogue – 201-204
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johnkarls
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Second Short Quiz – Prologue + Chapters 1-7

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1. Does Ruth Simmons conclude her Prologue with –

“I hope that recounting the events and people of my early life…..will help young people understand that, whatever the circumstances of their lives, they are born not to be the person that history, limited resources, and others dictate but, rather, the person that they are willing to pour their heart and soul into becoming.”

2. Is this “understanding” that she wants to inspire actually realistic? Can anyone become a major league baseball player or ambassador or college president or astronaut by simply “pouring her/his heart and soul” into such a dream?

3. Wouldn’t it be more realistic to say she wants to inspire young people to have dreams – no matter how unrealistic they may seem – and to “give them your best shot”?

4. Is it difficult or impossible for you to imagine the racism of 1940’s/1950’s rural Texas despite the descriptions in Chapter 1? And is it understandable that it would leave scars that do not heal despite best efforts?

5. So is it any surprise that Ruth Simmons owns some undeveloped land in Texas that her mother had inherited from her own mother? Does Ruth return there as often as possible to marvel about her roots?

6. BTW, in explaining her frequent returns “up home,” does she mention the seemingly odd (at least to Yours Truly) title of our book as simply meaning it was north of Houston, and if it had been south of Houston, the title of our book would presumably have been “Down Home”?

7. Who were the “Miss Fannie” and “Mr. Ike” featured in the Chapter 2 title?

8. In addition to Ruth’s mother (Miss Fannie) and father (Mr. Ike), does Chapter 2 provide in-depth descriptions of all her relatives and what they were like and did?

9. Does Ruth recount her mother crying unconsolably upon learning her third son had been posted to Korea during the war as the first time Ruth herself felt any vulnerability despite living in a Black sharecropping culture?

10. BTW, were Fannie and Ike married in an AME church??? Do we already know from elsewhere that AME churches were African Methodist Episcopal Churches which historically were separate from regular Methodist Churches in which Blacks were NOT welcome??? And do we also already know that many United Methodist Churches became All Black when the racial composition of their neighborhoods changed???

11. Was Mr. Ike’s goal to become a Baptist Minister which he accomplished “after many years”? This despite the facts that his wife (Miss Fannie, Ruth’s mother) had survived [his] beatings, the separations, the quarrels, and the other women”?

12. For the sharecroppers of Grapeland TX, is it true that “children did heavy labor from sun-up to sun-down like grown-ups as soon as they were able”??? Did that labor comprise picking cotton???

13. Do we already know that Eli Whitney invented the “cotton gin” in 1793 (patented 1794) to separate cotton fibers from their seeds – thereby GREATLY INCREASING the demand for slave labor as cotton fabrics displaced other types of cloth??? And that it was not until the late 1940’s and 1950’s that International Harvester marketed widely the cotton-picking machines developed by John and Mack Rust in the 1920’s???

14. Does the title of Chapter 3 (Greater New Hope) refer to the name of the church that Ruth and her family attended??? Although her mother was AME Methodist and her father a long-time sharecropper who eventually realized his dream of becoming a Baptist Minister, did an exhaustive Google search fail to unearth any info about “Greater New Hope” in or around Grapeland TX, much less its denomination???

15. Does Ruth disclose in Chapter 3 whether she had any religious beliefs and, if so, what they were???

16. Does the Chapter 4 title “Latexo” refer to a nearby community where Ruth’s father enjoyed a slightly higher status with the owners of the sharecropping farms? Was Ruth permitted as a six-year-old to attend school in Latexo?

17. Does the Chapter 5 title “Miss Ida Mae” refer to Ruth’s first teacher, Miss Ida Mae Henderson? Does Ruth explain in Chapter 5 that children of sharecroppers were only permitted to attend school when not needed for work in the fields -- but that her father’s enhanced status in Latexo meant that Ruth could attend school every day?

18. In how many different ways do you believe Miss Ida Mae was an inspiration to Ruth???

19. Does the Chapter 6 title “Bloody Fifth” refer to Houston’s Fifth Ward to which Ruth’s family moved the summer after her first school year with Miss Ida Mae?

20. So why the adjective BLOODY for the Fifth Ward??? Chapter 6 covers various aspects of Ruth’s life from second grade through junior high school (1952-1960), but does it ever describe anything as “bloody” in a criminal sense??? Or “bloody” in the British sense of being an “intensifier” like “very” or “extremely”??? Or in any other sense???

21. Does Ruth add to her Pantheon only one Grades 2-9 teacher to keep company Grade 1 teacher, Miss Ida Mae? Does she add only Junior HS teacher, Mrs. Modria Caraway, a Social Studies teacher, because Mrs. Caraway taught that current events were just as important as events described in the social studies textbook – introducing Ruth to the importance of newspapers, magazines, etc.?

22. Does Ruth make the interesting point that the all-Black segregated schools she attended had superb teachers because they were extremely bright and well-educated Blacks who, due to segregation, were not permitted to teach in White schools?

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