Memphis

In this flashback, Hazel, who is August and Miriam’s mother, is 15 years old. Her mother Della, Joan’s great-grandmother, is the best seamstress in Memphis. Hazel’s father died during the latest Mississippi River flood while trying to rescue families. As a kid, Hazel helped her mother with her work and experienced racist behavior from white customers. Her skin has a “pecan color.”

Hazel goes to Stanley’s deli store. Stanley is a white Jewish German immigrant, but all the Black people in the neighborhood love him. His store has a white and colored section, but Stanley does not act discriminatory. His business endured during the Great Depression, but the Ku Klux Klan set fire to the store. He rebuilt it with the help of both the Black and white people of Douglass.

Hazel enters the store to buy groceries when she sees a Black boy, Myron, playing music at the record player. Stanley tells her to go greet him. Hazel observes his indigo color, which enchants her. She does not realize that a white police officer is in the store, looking at the two of them in the white section. When the officer questions them, Myron draws Hazel to his side. She feels safe and senses that this boy will be “her blessing.” Without fear, Hazel looks directly at the white man. The officer calls her “girl,” which enrages her. She thinks about how people also call her mother “girl.” Myron stands between her and the police officer. They run to the door and leave.

Hazel tells Myron she does not like it when anyone calls her “girl,” and he tells her she isn’t thinking clearly as they both could have been hanged. He also says he is sorry about her father’s death. They formally introduce themselves to one another, and as they walk down the street, a young Miss Dawn calls to them from her window, shouting at them to get out of her yard and go get married.

Hazel is helping her mother Della at work. Their customer is Mrs. Finley, a descendant of Nathan Bedford Forest whose husband is in the Ku Klux Klan. Hazel and Della try to behave just right because she is a regular customer and she helped their business during the Great Depression by bringing more customers to Della’s. However, Della, “a proud woman,” cannot always control herself (110).

After she turns 18, Della gives Hazel a small salary, and Hazel saves the money for her and Myron while he works as a porter. Myron and Hazel spend their time at Miss Dawn’s, sitting and talking on the porch. Myron tells her he wants to build her a home and promises to always protect her. Hazel reveals to him that after their first meeting, she went back to Stanley’s store and gave him a pie. He did not tell him that she also gave Stanley a kiss on the cheek, which was a dangerous thing for a Black woman in the South to do. After their graduation, both decided to start saving for their future home.

One day, Myron suddenly appears at Della’s work to find Hazel. The presence of a young Black man disturbs Mrs. Finley. Myron kneels and proposes to Hazel, and as Mrs. Finley screams, Della tells her to leave. Hazel is so emotional she does not even look at the ring and scolds him for wasting his money. Later, Myron announces to Hazel that he enlisted. Days later they get married, and the next day Myron goes to war.

August gets lost in her thoughts in the kitchen. She feels tired and does not have much courage to face her work. As she wearily prepares breakfast, thoughts about Derek torment her.

Growing up, Derek became like his father, “brooding” and criminal. As a kid, he would cause trouble at school doing “petty stuff.” However, two years after he attacked Joan, he broke a girl’s arm. The white people from Children’s Services diagnosed him with a personality disorder. The state told August that her son needed constant surveillance. August then made the painful decision to abandon her dreams of going to college. As she was always the unofficial hairdresser for the family, she thought that hair was something she could do. She built her salon on her own in the basement of the house and resolved to succeed. In a year, she became the most successful hairdresser in North Memphis. She hoped that her mother would be proud.

August keeps thinking about how her son left that morning with the Douglass gang. She has an intense argument with Miriam, who is angry that a known gang member walks to school with the kids. Miriam wants to keep Joan and Mya away from the “gangsters.” August tells her she must realize there is a gang war in their neighborhood and that the police do not care. August tells her that Joan and Mya already live with a gangster. August tells Miriam her son is a “monster.”

However, she broods over the kiss Derek gave her before leaving that morning and how he told her he loved her. She worries about all the people she loves.

Hazel prepares food in the kitchen of her home, thinking about Myron. Myron built their house on his own and painted the walls himself. Hazel did not know he could draw until she saw that Myron drew her face on a napkin. Myron survived the war. He sent letters to Hazel and despite the cruelty he experienced, he only expressed his love for her.

Hazel recalls her wedding day. Her mother made her wedding dress, and the ceremony took place in Miss Dawn’s yard. The whole neighborhood contributed something to the reception. Stanley gave the bride away and Hazel tried not to think about Myron’s draft papers.

Hazel and Myron try to have a baby for 10 years. Hazel often feels despair and guilt, but Myron reassures her that the time will come. Finally, Hazel gets pregnant. Months before she learns about her pregnancy, her mother Della dies after a heart attack. Hazel is wracked with grief over her mother’s death. Only the thought of Myron and their baby gives her hope.

Myron has become the first Black homicide detective. Hazel prepares to get him lunch at work, thinking that he and their baby are the only relatives she has.

August decides that singing will be her wedding gift to Jax and Miriam. August knows her voice is a gift but hates to sing in the church choirs. She believes that God is a “trickster” for giving her this talent. August will give her sister away on her wedding day. Stanley cannot do it as he has used a wheelchair since having a stroke. As she accompanies her sister down the aisle, she sings Aretha Franklin’s song “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man.” The crowd is ecstatic with her singing.

At the wedding reception in the Officer’s Club, August grieves a loss. She feels that Jax is a stranger who is taking her sister away and finds no reason to celebrate. Miss Dawn tells her she “brought [the] house of the Lord down” with her song (129). Miss Dawn has known August since she was present at August’s birth. She helped Hazel deliver her at home as Hazel distrusted the white doctors and nurses at the hospital. Miss Dawn tells August that God spoke to her when she was born, and she should sing more often.

At the door, August sees a young man who looks exactly like Jax asking where his twin brother is. A white waiter attempts to stop him from entering, and the young man knocks the waiter down with a pistol. His name is Bird, and he asks August where his new sister is. August and Bird dance all evening and they spend the night together.

Miriam studies in an intensive nursing program at Rhodes College. She spends most of her time reading and working. She works an unpaid entry job at the hospital but also has an overnight shift at the library. The family still struggles financially, and Miriam knows they cannot depend only on August’s salary. Miriam’s money allows her to help with the groceries and the bills. However, she also applies for government assistance and food stamps. She does not want to ask Jax for help. Miriam tries to discourage Joan from drawing, thinking art has no practical use. She wishes that Joan were more like Mya, who excels in science and math. Joan focuses on poetry, history, and art, “subjects at which it would be a lifelong struggle for a Black woman to earn a cent” (135).

Miriam is afraid of Derek but does not hate him. She and August never allow the girls to be alone with him. She is grateful that her sister offered her and her daughters shelter but feels “a different kind of shame” thinking about Joan and Derek (136).

Miriam is waiting in line in the hospital’s coffee shop when she hears the local news on television about another shooting between the Memphis gangs. A moment later, she sees Derek’s mugshot on the screen. Police arrested him along with another man. Miriam leaves and quickly drives back home. She finds August in the salon along with Miss Dawn and the girls. August sits in the dark holding her head, and two journalists ask her for a statement.

Hazel is in the police station where Myron works. A white officer sees her, and he thinks she wants to visit somebody in prison. He calls her “girl,” and this enrages her, but she controls herself. She asks for her husband, Officer Myron North. Another white officer comes, and Hazel feels angry and anxious. They realize who she is, and the second officer compliments her looks. As he attempts to touch her pregnant belly, Myron appears. In his presence, Hazel feels “safe, calm, and proud” (142).

Myron leads Hazel outside and tells her not to come to the police station again. He puts his hand on her belly and asks how his son is. Hazel tells him their baby is a “she.” Hazel feels worried as he tells her the police do not allow him to arrest white people. Myron is working on a case of rape and identified a white college kid as a perpetrator, and they do not permit him to arrest him. Instead, they try to frame a Black man. Hazel kisses him and tells him to come home.

Later at home, Hazel works on her new quilt with a Tree of Life pattern while she waits for Myron. She sees the white police officer from the station on the front porch and rushes to the door. The officer informs her that they pulled Myron’s car from the Mississippi River and found his body in a landfill “bruised and broken” (146). Hazel understands that Myron’s fellow police officers murdered him, and she spits at the officer’s face. He leaves, telling her she is lucky that she is pregnant. She retorts that if she had strength, she would hang him.

Hazel starts screaming, and the whole Douglass neighborhood comes to her porch. Many of them remain by her side to watch her and protect her. A week later, Hazel gives birth to her and Myron’s daughter, the same day Emmett Till, whom a white woman accused of improper conduct, is lynched in Mississippi. Hazel explodes in rage, and the white nurses at the hospital tie her to the bed. She names her daughter Miriam because the name resembles Myron’s.