Jubilee

During the 1868 elections, the Ku Klux Klan “[rides] for three days and nights” (440). Their goal is to terrorize black people out of exercising their right to vote. Congress’ investigations uncover that the “vigilante group” is “well organized all over the South” and “represented on every level of southern politics” (440). Ware concludes that the federal government cannot protect them. He also refuses Henry Turner’s attempts to persuade him to re-enter politics. 

The Browns arrive in Luverne, Alabama—a small, quiet town. One of the soldiers tells her that this “part of Alabama has been in a famine ever since the war ended,” which explains the raw-boned white people staring at them from outside of their “ramshackly houses” (442). The soldiers admit that they’ll be unlikely to farm in Crenshaw County but could have better luck in Butler County. Vyry knows that Butler County is where the town of Georgiana is.

The soldiers take the Browns to a “three-room shack at the end of a long row of houses where colored people were living in Luverne” (445). They’re unhappy to be there but content themselves with at least having shelter. Innis Brown takes Jim with him to the Freedman’s Bureau, where he “[hires] himself out driving a dray” (445).