The Land

This is an okay book written by Mildred Taylor. Ever since running away at the age of 14, Paul Logan has had one dream: to be the owner of a plot of land. While growing up, Paul loved and feared his white father, but adored the land he grew up on. After a rash of youthful rebellion, he leaves his family behind and vows to succeed on his own. However, for a black man in 1880s Mississippi this is a difficult task and especially so if you are of a mixed race and aren’t trusted by blacks or whites. He eventually becomes the grandfather of Cassie Logan.

This is a prequel to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I thought the most fascinating aspect of the story was that the main character was trying to save up enough money to buy some land so he would have an asset that could generate future income. This is a good example of the American Dream, that through hard work you can move out of poverty and succeed. I was also thinking about how the main character was of mixed ethnicity, and depending on whether he married a black woman or a white woman, it would determine the racial makeup of his descendants. Any person could marry someone from another race and if their children stayed in that race, traces of the original ethnicity would basically be gone after a few generations. Also it’s possible for a line of black men to have a European Y-chromosome, if one of their ancestors was white, or the opposite could happen.