Your Blues Ain't Like Mine
Mississippi Mud: A report on Your Blues Ain't Like Mine I never thought that reading a book would open up my mind like this one did. This book exposed me to all the horrors of the south during the civil rights movement and beyond. It all starts one summer in the fifties in rural Mississippi. Armstrong Todd, a young black man, is sent away to his grandma's for awhile by his mother, Delotha, while she got back on her feet. See Delotha's husband Wydell left because he was a drunk and Delotha couldn't deal with him anymore. So since Delotha couldn't make enough money in Chicago to feed herself and Armstrong she sent him down to live with her mother, Odessa, in Hopewell, Mississippi. This is where it all starts. One day after school Armstrong was milling around in the town pool hall for blacks, owned by Floyd Cox, a poor white man. He was showing off and having a good time and trying to convince all the other blacks in the hall how educated he was by speaking French to them. When Floyd and his wife Lily came into town that day, they stopped by the pool hall to see if things were going ok. Floyd told Lily to stay in the truck when he went inside but she didn't listen to him and went in anyway. Once inside the
This was a very compelling story that kept my interest the entire way through. We couldn't even treat them like real people. would be taken away from her, not by the white people she protected him from, but by the mean streets of Chicago. She wouldn't even let his own father come near him because she was so afraid that this son would be taken away from her just like Armstrong. It also tells about how Clayton was "held down" by his father because his father was a very racist southern version of an aristocrat. Delotha gets Wydell off the alcohol he was so dependent on and gives him the confidence to go to barber school so they could open a salon together. She called it Armstrong, even when his name was Wydell Jr. It's hard to think that we (whites) treated blacks like cattle. The book also goes into detail about Floyd's family with his abusiveness, drunkenness, being never able to find a steady job, and his criminal escapades. It talks about how Lily puts up with Floyd because she is so dependent upon him. This infuriated him and he yelled at and almost came to beating up Armstrong. It tells of how Wydell and Delotha reunite after the death of their son Armstrong and start a new family together.
Common topics in this essay:
Pinochet Clayton,
America It's,
French Floyd,
Armstrong Todd,
Delotha Wydell,
John Earl,
Wydell Jr,
Lily Floyd,
Moore Campbell,
Hopewell Mississippi,
pool hall,
black woman,
delotha wydell,
poor white,
treated blacks,
son armstrong,
wydell jr,
delotha couldn't,
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