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 young black man fascinated her talking French and she started to blush when he talked to her. Floyd didn't know what to think when he saw this happening and since he didn't understand French and didn't care too much for black people, he took the French as Armstrong saying dirty things to his wife. This infuriated him and he yelled at and almost came to beating up Armstrong. After this he thought he had taken care of everything, but his father Lester and John Earl thought different and convinced Floyd that he should kill the young black boy for talking nasty to his wife. So they did. This is only the beginning.
             The book also goes into detail about Floyd's family
             ...