The Rock and The River

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2009

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-7

Chapters 8-9

Chapters 10-11

Chapters 12-14

Chapters 15-16

Chapters 17-19

Chapters 20-21

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 5-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary

Mama sends Sam to bed before Father and Stick return home on the night of the protest at the police station. Unable to sleep, Sam starts reading the magazines under Stick’s bed that Stick forbade him to read. He finds an issue of the Black Panther magazine that includes information about Huey Newton and the party’s ten-point platform. Stick and Father return and continue their arguing until Father sends Stick to his room.

The next morning, Sam is looking for a shirt when he notices a section of the block tower has been rebuilt. He looks closer to find one of Stick’s shirt folded up inside the castle. When he pulls the shirt out, a gun rolls onto the floor. After looking at the gun, he puts it back in the tower and puts on Stick’s shirt that had been wrapped around it. Sam finds Stick after the breakfast and confronts him about the gun. Sticks says he is keeping it for a friend and walks away.

At dinner, Father asks Sam about what he saw during Bucky’s arrest. Mama and Stick ask Father to leave Sam alone, and he sends Sam and Stick to their room. Stick tells Sam to cover for him while he sneaks out, but when Father comes to say goodnight, he makes Sam open the door and sees that Stick is gone. Father sits on the floor in the boys’ room waiting for Stick to return.

Chapter 6 Summary

When Sam wakes up, Stick is rifling around the room looking for something. He tells Sam to go back to sleep and leaves out the window again. Sam stops seeing Stick at the breakfast and wonders where he goes so late and early. Sam and Maxie grow closer, walking and talking before and after school every day. One Spring day, they stay at school late to watch kids playing basketball. The principal tells everyone to go home, and as Sam walks Maxie home, they notice more people out than usual. Sam asks someone what was going on and learns Dr. King was killed. People cry and shout in the streets before breaking store windows and setting fires. Sam throws a brick through a store window and kicks the door in. Maxie calls out to him, and they run away to Sam’s house, where Mama is watching television and Father is shouting on the phone. Father leaves and promises to stop by Maxie’s to tell her mom where she is, since Maxie’s family does not have a telephone.

Stick comes through the window in the middle of the night to ask Sam if everything is OK at their home. Sam fills him in, and Stick leaves again. Father, Mama, Sam, and Stick go to the memorial service for Dr. King at their church. As they drive home, they pass a Black Panther demonstration. Stick slinks down in the car to avoid being seen and Father voices his disapproval.

Chapter 7 Summary

Father attends the formal funeral service for Dr. King in Atlanta, while Mama and Sam watch it on television. Sam walks through the streets to find Maxie, and they go to the park near school to talk. Maxie tells Sam that Raheem is with the Black Panthers now more than before, and Sam says the same with Stick. They talk about being scared and agree to go to the Black Panther meeting on Wednesday.

Sam returns home to find Father and Stick tensely sitting at the dining table. They argue, and Stick tells Father he is a Panther. Father tells Stick he can’t live in his house and be a Panther. Stick leaves, and Sam follows him. Sam asks Stick to stay but Stick leaves. When Sam comes back inside alone, Father cries.

Chapters 5-7 Analysis

Sam’s relationship with Stick becomes more contentious as Stick presses on with the Panthers amid escalating racial tensions. Sam feels betrayed when Stick hides his gun in their block tower, saying, “The tower seemed ugly now. Violated” (82). The gun—a symbol of violence—forcibly mars the things the tower has come to mean for Sam: his and Stick’s relationship, progress, and their innocence. The gun violating the tower indicates the beginning of Sam’s disillusionment and his growth from childhood to adulthood.

Magoon reveals the personal impact the death of Dr. King has on the Child family, deepening the commitment to the Civil Rights Movement on both the peaceful and aggressive sides of the cause. Sam reveals that he is a Black Panther, and the conflict between father and son deepens further. Sam says, “They weren’t in the same car. They weren’t even on the same road” (108). Sam himself is affected by the news of King’s death, as he uncharacteristically takes action, participating in vandalizing property out of grief and anger. Again, the message appears that zero violence is not possible in this movement, as the peaceful protestor Dr. King has been violently assassinated. We also see that Stick is endangering himself in becoming a Panther, and his father, who weeps at his decision, fears for his life.

After the riots, Sam uses short sentences and phrases to describe Maxie’s neighborhood, emphasizing the brokenness of everything: “The streets were still a mess…The gutters, a mess of glass and garbage. If anything beautiful had ever existed here, it was long gone. Gone from people’s eyes, and from the very air they breathed. Only the ugliness remained…People moved like shadows” (109). Here, Magoon again emphasizes the importance of the movement. While the movement is not without casualties, it gives Black Americans like Maxie hope for a better life.