Content Warning: This section of the guide includes incidents of racial discrimination and violence present in the source text.

In June of 1963, the governor of Alabama physically blocks two Black students from entering a University of Alabama building, protesting integration. The same month, Medgar Evers is murdered in Jackson, Mississippi. Three months later, four young Black girls are killed in an explosion that targeted Black people at a church in Birmingham, Alabama.

Tommie narrates how he wasn’t aware of all the dangers that Black Americans faced, since news often arrived slowly. He arrives in San Jose for college. When he arrives, he meets Saint Saffold, his roommate. At school, Tommie notices that many other students wear nicer clothes than him, and he feels like the odd one out. Saint, who plays basketball and football, is friendly. Tommie misses his family but knows that getting an education will mean that he would never have to work in a field.

During his freshman year, Tommie is 1 of only 20 or 30 Black students, and white students “would stare, jeer, turn their backs, even point at [him]” (109). He studies social science, wanting to prove that he is serious about his education and not just there to make the school’s sports teams look good.