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Chapters 1-2
Reading Check
1. Stick is hit in the face with a bottle. (Chapter 1)
2. Sam is accused of stealing from the shop. (Chapter 2)
3. The family is inundated with questions about the protest. (Chapter 2)
Short Answer
1. The older nurse, who sees young Black men as troublemakers, makes them fill out paperwork. The younger nurse gets Stick help. (Chapter 2)
2. The family feels guilty for distracting from Dr. King’s nonviolent movement. (Chapter 2)
3. The Black Panther movement has views that conflict with Dr. King’s nonviolent approach to change. (Chapter 2)
Chapters 3-4
Reading Check
1. Sam dreams of being an architect. (Chapter 3)
2. The Black Panthers (Chapter 3)
3. Bucky is beaten by the police. (Chapter 4)
Short Answer
1. Sam believes his brother wants to protect him from the Black Panther resistance program. (Chapter 3)
2. Bucky refuses to cooperate with an unprovoked search and refuses even to give his name. (Chapter 4)
3. The Black Panthers demonstrate to protest Bucky’s arrest. (Chapter 4)
Chapters 5-7
Reading Check
1. Sam reads his brother’s Black Panther magazines. (Chapter 5)
2. A gun (Chapter 5)
3. The news breaks that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been assassinated. (Chapter 7)
Short Answer
1. They argue about the Black Panthers’ program for violent and aggressive resistance to white racist actions. (Chapter 5)
2. The neighborhood reacts with shock, anger, sadness, and outrage. (Chapter 6)
3. Father tells Stick he cannot stay under his roof and maintain membership with the Black Panthers. (Chapter 7)
Chapters 8-9
Reading Check
1. Sam meets Maxie at the Black Panther political education class. (Chapter 8)
2. Father urges Sam to help with Bucky’s trial rather than demonstrate. (Chapter 8)
3. Maxie argues that Sam refuses to give his full support to the Black Panther movement. (Chapter 9)
Short Answer
1. He pleads with Sam to work for justice rather than agitate and disrupt the trial. (Chapter 8)
2. Father tells Sam that people are more afraid of ideas than guns and that ideas change the world. (Chapter 9)
3. Unsure of how to react to Maxie’s claims, Sam lashes out at her family and insults her. (Chapter 9)
Chapters 10-11
Reading Check
1. Stick’s face is cut and bruised. (Chapter 10)
2. Stick asks Sam for the gun. (Chapter 10)
3. Sam refuses to tell Stick where he hid the gun. (Chapter 11)
Short Answer
1. Maxie tells Sam that he is different from the rest and that the Black Panther movement may not be for him. (Chapter 11)
2. Sam is unsure whether the gun (and the violence it symbolizes) is the best way to handle the work of social change and civil rights. (Chapter 10)
3. Sam sees that both his father and the Black Panthers are working for the same goal. They both want justice for Black people and real social change. (Chapter 11)
Chapters 12-14
Reading Check
1. Trying to hide the gun from his father, Sam sticks it in his waistband. (Chapter 12)
2. Sam points the gun into the face of a white man choking Stick. (Chapter 12)
3. Nothing happens to the man who stabs Father. (Chapter 14)
Short Answer
1. Stick says that Sam is too young and too naïve to help the Black Panther movement. Sam still lives in a child’s world of right and wrong. (Chapter 13)
2. Only an escort provided by the Black Panthers allows Mama and Sam to make their way through the media vans. (Chapter 14)
3. The police, there to maintain the peace, side with the white protesters. (Chapter 12)
Chapters 15-16
Reading Check
1. They want Sam to testify at Bucky’s trial. (Chapter 15)
2. Father wants Sam to agree to never pick up a gun again. (Chapter 15)
3. Sam finds out that Father has been helping the Black Panthers prepare Bucky’s defense. (Chapter 16)
Short Answer
1. Stick explains it as the difference between Black people waiting for handouts from white people and Black people taking care of each other. (Chapter 16)
2. Stick accuses Sam of being too naïve and trying too hard to avoid complexities of the world. (Chapter 16)
Chapters 17-19
Reading Check
1. Raheem opens the glove compartment and reveals the gun. (Chapter 17)
2. Sam is too terrified to do anything. (Chapter 17)
3. Sam runs out of the hospital and heads to a lake, far from the confusion and pain. (Chapter 19)
Short Answer
1. Bucky’s not-guilty verdict triggered white anger and violence against Black people. (Chapter 18)
2. Sam sees after his brother’s death that peaceful demonstrations may not work. (Chapter 18)
3. Maxie tricks Sam to get him back with his father and give him a place to go and think. (Chapter 19)
Chapters 20-21
Reading Check
1. The Panthers plan to kill the police officer responsible for Stick’s death. (Chapter 20)
2. While Raheem hugs Sam, he slips a gun into Sam’s waistband. (Chapter 20)
3. He changes his mind about taking revenge on the officer who killed Stick. (Chapter 21)
Short Answer
1. Sam comes to terms with his brother’s death and believes he will find his own way to handle the reality of racism. (Chapter 21)
2. Sam decides in the end to find his own way: Like the river in the parable, he will be fluid, not fixed, and able to respond without dogmatic certainty, moved by events. (Chapter 21)
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