Let the Circle be Unbroken

In Chapter Nine, Stuart Walker and his friends drive by, and Stuart stops to talk to Suzella. He asks with whom she is stayingh, and before Cassie can say anything Suzella tells him her name and says she is visiting from New York. He says he’d like to take her out and call on her at home. She demurs but continues to pretend she is white. When Cassie speaks up Stuart shushes her. After Stuart leaves, Suzella can see that Cassie and her younger brothers are visibly angry.

When Cassie tells her mother, Mama is shaken and approaches Suzella. Suzella defends herself and says she did not say she was white. Mama says that if she did not say she was colored, then it was the same thing as saying she was white. Suzella says she is not colored, and that she had made a promise to herself a long time ago that she would never marry a white man like her own mother did. Mama tells her she has a choice: she can remain here and abide by the rules, or she can leave.