5. After calling the neighbors and a doctor, they find that she has had a stroke and that her entire left side is paralyzed. When his grandmother arrives, they move Ella to Jackson, Mississippi where all of her relatives have gathered.
7. His relatives decide that Richard and his brother will be separated to live with different families. His brother, it has been decided, will move to Detroit with Aunt Maggie to finish his schooling
8. Richard, however, is given a choice of which he would like to live with. Although jealous of his brother who is moving to the North, Richard chooses to live Uncle Clark in Greenwood, the closest location to Jackson.
9. After moving, Uncle Clark and Aunt Jody decide to enroll Richard in school immediately. At school, Richard is accepted by his peers after standing his ground during a fight.
10. On his way home, he finds a ring in the street. Taking out the stone and leaving the ring's prongs standing up, the ring becomes a makeshift weapon. The next day at school, no one challenges him to fight after seeing his weapon and Richard knows that he has truly been accepted.
11. Mr. Burton, the owner and former occupant of Uncle Clark's house stops by one evening. He tells Richard about how his own dead son had once lived in Richard's room and slept in Richard's bed.
12. Frightened by the prospect of ghosts, Richard cannot fall asleep in his bed. He asks his uncle to let him sleep on the sofa in the front room.
13. One evening, Richard takes the water pail to fill outside and drops it in his sleepiness. Wet and tired, he lets out a string of swear words. Aunt Jody hears his foul language and later that night, Uncle Clark whips Richard.
14. Afterwards, Richard tells his uncle that he wishes to return to Jackson. He leaves by train the very next Saturday.
15. Richard does not return to school in Jackson. Instead, he stays at home and watches his mother grow increasingly sick. After being taken away for an operation in Clarksdale, Richard knows that his mother has gone out of his life.
16. He ceases to react to her: "My feelings were frozen." Wright explains that these experiences with his mother - and all his suffering - acted as motivation for his interest in intellectual activity, the only thing that made him feel alive.
