It’s 1933, and the Logans (Cassie, Little Man, and Cassie's older brother) are walking to class on their first day of school.
A long time ago, Cassie’s grandfather purchased 400 acres of land from Harlan Granger’s family. However, they must pay for the taxed acres of land. The entire family pitches in.
The Logans—other than Stacey—don’t like T.J. very much. He reveals that Cassie almost got him in trouble by telling his mother that he had gone to the dancing room in the Wallace store. He got out of it by blaming his brother, Claude, instead, and Claude took a beating for it. The Logans think this is a dirty stunt, but T.J. finds it funny.
Stacey tells everyone to get off the road quickly, and everyone except for Little Man scrambles up the bank and into the forest. Little Man is reluctant to scramble up the bank and get his clothes dirty, but when the school bus drives by and raises the red dust, Little Man ends up getting dirtier than the rest of them. Little Man indignantly demands to know where their bus is, but Stacey tells him that the black kids don’t get a bus.
A white boy named Jeremy approaches the group and greets Stacey shyly. There’s a bit of an awkward silence, and the conversation reveals that school has been in session for a month already for the white kids. Jeremy walks with the Logan children every morning, even though he gets ridiculed and beaten for associating with them. Eventually, they split as Jeremy goes to the white school with his sister Lillian Jean, who regards the Logans with disdain.
The Logans continue on to the black school, which starts later in the year and gets out earlier because the black children have to help their families by working in the cotton fields. A lot of the older kids drop out of school entirely in order to help their parents work the fields. Cassie observes the students around her, who are wearing their Sunday best, even though all their clothes are full of patches, since no one can afford new clothes.
Cassie heads into the fourth grade classroom, which the fourth graders currently share with the first graders because the first grade teacher is held up in Jackson for a few days. Miss Crocker, the fourth grade teacher announces that this year, all the students will get books. This is big news, since most of the students have never handled a book before, other than the family Bible. The Logans are lucky, though, because Mama owns several books. Still, Cassie is excited at the prospect of getting her own book. However, once Miss Crocker reveals the books, Cassie sees that they’re badly worn, and her excitement fades into disappointment.
When it’s Little Man’s turn to take a book, he outrages the teacher by asking if he can get a cleaner copy. Miss Crocker accuses him of putting on airs, so Little Man takes his book and goes back to his seat. However, once he flips over the page and sees what’s written inside, he throws his book down and begins stomping on it. Cassie flips open her own copy and sees that there’s a record of who the book has been checked out to and what the condition of the book is. It turns out that the books are checked out to white children until the condition becomes “Very Poor,” at which point they’re given to black children, or “nigra” as it’s written in Cassie’s book.
Cassie tries to explain to Miss Crocker that Little Man is upset because of the chart, but Miss Crocker remains unsympathetic. She just tells Cassie, “That’s what you are” when Cassie tells her about the “nigra” written in her book. Cassie rejects her book too, and she and Little Man both get whipped.
Cassie tries to tell her mother about the incident when class lets out, but Miss Crocker gets there first, and Cassie overhears their conversation. Mama doesn’t seem to be very upset at her children, however, which frustrates Miss Crocker. Mama then glues paper in the books to cover up the charts, telling Miss Crocker that maybe they shouldn’t just accept the way things are. Miss Crocker, however, disapproves of Mama and thinks of her as a radical. Mama glues paper over the charts in all the books in her seventh grade