The Rock and the River

I haven’t read a book for young readers that addresses the tension between nonviolence and self-defense strategies during the Civil Rights movement.  I’m very interested in black nationalism and its impact on gender relations, so Kekla Magoon’s The Rock and the River has been calling my name for a while.  It’s a story of one middle-class family’s struggle to reconcile their conflicting allegiance to these opposing world views: Father is a disciple of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and expects his sons to behave accordingly, even though they feel stifled by the endless church meetings, rallies, and marches.  When seventeen-year old Stick begins to dabble in the more radical politics of the Black Panther Party, younger brother Sam isn’t sure what to do.  He reveres his father but adores his brother and so much of the book revolves around Sam’s efforts to please both of these older male role models.  Sam is only interested in the BPP because of Stick’s attraction to the group, and so his knowledge of the Party is gleaned from attending one Political Education class and secretly reading Stick’s hidden stash of Panther newsletters.  Sam’s girlfriend, Maxie, is living in an impoverished part of Chicago and immerses herself in the liberation struggle; she takes Sam to the free breakfast program at their school, and guides him away from the violent riots that explode after King’s assassination.  At times, Sam seems like a leaf being carried along by a tumultuous river; he is only thirteen, and does take decisive action toward the end of the novel when asked to take the stand on behalf of Stick’s friend who was nearly beaten to death by racist cops.  But there is a curious lack of rage in this book, or perhaps an overwhelming sense of restraint since Sam does nearly explode at the very end of the novel.  I don’t know if that’s the result of over-efficient editing, or if that’s the author’s intent, but the family is quite closed; Sam has no friends, and so really is tossed between his allegiance to brother and father.  We have limited access to his interior life, and at times his reflections seem mature beyond his years; he rarely confides in Maxie yet says, “It touched me that she wanted to be close.  But right then, I didn’t have it in me to give her what she needed.”  What did this thirteen-year old girl need?  I would like to have had more dialogue between Sam and those *outside* of his family so that Sam could emerge as an individual and not merely an appendage to Stick or his father.  I also wondered at the lack of conversation around manliness; a big part of the Panthers’ appeal was its construction of militant black manhood.  Aside from the mention of black leather jackets, boots, and berets, there’s no conversation about the men Stick and Sam aspire to be.  Is their father a “real man” in their eyes?  What does he do with his feelings of rage and helplessness?  Sam is terrorized by white cops who roam black communities at will, yet we never hear what he thinks about violence–does he ever fantasize about fighting back?  Had the thought really never crossed his mind until Stick too becomes a victim of police brutality?  Does virulent racism stir feelings of hatred for whites in Sam?  I also would have liked a female Panther role model for Maxie–maybe Stick could have had a girlfriend in the church, and then the role of women in both masculinist movements could have been compared and contrasted.  Still, there was a moment in the novel when I found myself covered in goosebumps, and Magoon does a great job showing the Panthers as disciplined, organized, and committed to serving the community.  Magoon’s writing is rather formal at times, but otherwise flawless and this book is a good introduction to the complex conflict between a conservative older generation and an impatient, radical generation of blacks seeking freedom, justice, and self-sufficiency.