Summer 2006 (Class of 2010): Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy Tyson (2005)
Book Description-
"Daddy and Roger and 'em shot 'em a nigger." Those words,
whispered to ten-year-old Tim Tyson by a playmate, heralded a
firestorm that would forever transform the tobacco market of Oxford,
North Carolina. On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a
twenty-three-year-old black veteran, walked into a crossroads store
owned by Robert Teel and came out running. Tell and two of his sons
chased and beat Marrow, then killed him in public as he pleaded for
his life. Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been
touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the
killing, young African Americans took to the streets. While lawyers
battled in the courthouse, the Klan raged in the shadows and black
Vietnam veterans torched the town's tobacco warehouses. Tyson's
father, the pastor of Oxford's all-white Methodist church, urged the
town to come to terms with its bloody racial history. In the end,
however, the Tyson family was forced to move away. Tim Tyson's
riveting narrative of that fiery summer brings gritty blues truth,
soaring gospel vision, and down-home humor to a shocking episode of
our history. -2004 edition
more about Blood Done Sign My Name
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think Tim Tyson chose Blood Done Sign My Name as the title for the book?
2. What significance does the community of "Grab-all" have in this story? What does the existence of communities like "Grab-all" in the early 1970s and even today signify?
3. What role did the black power movement play in the events in Oxford, North Carolina? Do you think that the advocates of black power were ultimately successful or was this a failed strategy?
4. How does Tim Tyson, himself, become a character in this story? Is his personalizing of the events in Oxford an effective means of telling this story?
5. What do you think this book says about the issue of race relations in North Carolina? In the South? in the United States?
