The Logans’ face the possibility of being hanged or maimed by the white landowners trying to get their land. The Logans’ are forced to pay more taxes on their land to Mr. Granger (a main plantation owner) in attempt for him to get their land. The land was originally Mr. Grangers’ and was sold for a very low price for tax money. In raising the payments, Mr. Granger expects the Logan family not to be able to pay for the land and will have to sell some of it and then Mr. Granger can buy it back.
The Logans’ face hardship and racism because there is always the threat of night men being sent to retrieve the land. The Logans’ live in fear because of this and is indeed why Papa takes Mr. Morrison to work on the land. Cassie does not realise the importance of the Logan Land at the beginning of the play, but by the end this changes as she has seen some examples of the harsh reality of life in Mississippi. She is not only crying for ‘T.J and the land’, she cries for freedom and equality too.
The general life style of the Logan family is better than that of most average families of the black community in the 1930s. The Logan family are extremely fortunate to own their own land (which Papa simply calls ‘Logan Land’) as most of the other Blacks have to work on white land as sharecroppers, only being able to afford the bare minimum and few necessities (which they would have thought to have been a luxury) such as shoes or even books at school. The average black families who were on the Granger sharecrop land were in a constant cycle of debt.
In comparison to the other black families in the area, the quality of the Logan life is much better than that of most of the local Blacks in the book. For example the Logans have a smart best dress outfit whereas the Avery children are not as smartly dressed as they cannot afford to buy new clothes when they grow out of them.
On the first day of school the Logan children wear their best clothes, but T.J. and Claude do not have shoes to go with their Sunday best clothing and it was ‘…patched and worn, hung loosely upon their frail frames’. The Logans look after what they have and try to keep clean. E.g. Little Man, ‘Always meticulously neat…never allowed dirt or tears or stains mar anything he owned.’
The Logan children are also lucky that they have the luxury of an animal skin as a rain mac to keep them dry on their arduous journey to Great Faith Elementary and Secondary School. Later in the book, Mama goes to church in her Sunday best clothing; we see that she lines her shoes with cardboard to keep them for longer and to hide the hole in her shoes. They make their belongings last.
The Logan family are better off because they own land. On the land, they plant and sell cotton. The Logans’ bought two of the four hundred acres in 1887 and a further two hundred acres in 1918. The other more recent of the two lots of land had a mortgage to pay off and all of it had taxes. (Recent depression meant that cotton prices dropped (1930) so Papa had to work on the railroads.) Papa has to work on the railroads to pay the taxes. He works in Louisiana in the warmer months and returns there in spring.
The land makes them different and they have an advantage over other families as they have more money for necessities. The Logan children are different from other black children such as the Avery children as they respect their parents and each other a lot more. As shown when Cassie stands up for Little Man when the books are revealed to be old and used. T.J. would have probably not helped his smaller brother Claude as T.J. is conniving and blames Claude for being at the Wallace store and Claude gets beaten for not doing anything wrong. T.J avoids a beating and is very selfish.
The Logans are a much closer family than most of the black families as there is a work incentive, in that they all have to work together to live to pay the tax and mortgages. The Logan children have a much better attitude to work as well. When T.J. is asked to do work, he proudly tells the Logan children how he makes an excuse so he does not have to work. The Logan children, however, know they must work to pay the taxes etc.
The Logan family is much more self sufficient as they have to work harder to keep their land theirs. Other black families do not have this worry. The Logan children are much more responsible and helpful.
‘Mama wanted us to take some milk and butter down to Miz. Jackson before noon. We’d better get started.’
They know they have to do a job to help so will do it.
Life for the Logan family, most certainly is harder than that of the average black family in Spokane County. They go through hard times and help each other out, either financially or emotionally. E.g. Uncle Hammer selling his car to pay the mortgage or Papa coming home after the incident with the Berrys. They support each other with problems and face things as a family. For example, shopping at Vicksburg.
Being in the black community and having land in southern America was an extremely difficult task but the Logan family get through it by teaching their children to respect everyone and everything e.g. land.
We see the effect that the teachings of Mama, Papa and Big Ma have on the Logan children at the end when Cassie cries for T.J. and the land. Cassie did not like T.J. all of the time as he had betrayed Staceys trust e.g. by cheating on the test and by saying that people called Stacey a ‘fat preacher’ to get the coat. T.J caused havoc with the Logan family and cost Mama her job, leaving the family short of money for the land yet Cassie still had sympathy for him. Cassie had been taught such respect that she is sorry for T.J.’s punishment and is glad of the freedom that she does have.
Mama had told Cassie ‘White people may demand our respect, but what we will give them is not respect but fear. What we give to our own people is far more important because it is given freely.’ At this point in the play, Cassie is made to grow up as she has been told the reality of the racism. She understands why Big Ma told her to apologize to Lillian-Jean.
Life for the Logan children is hard because they live in such a racist society and their parent shelter them for the most part, however, when Mr Morrison is telling his story: ‘ these are things they need to hear’. Mama makes them listen and the ways that she teaches her children respect is effective as it shocks them about the racism which they may encounter in their lives.
The land is a sign of independence. Throughout the book Big Mama, Mama, and Papa all reiterate that they will not lose the land. In a culture where the memory of slavery is still strong, land is a symbol of independence and self-sufficiency. Because they own land, the Logan’s can afford to shop in Vicksburg and are not obliged to bow to the whims of landlords as sharecroppers are. For the Logans, unlike Mr. Granger who sees the land as a symbol of his family's ‘rightful’ domination over blacks and a means of income, the land is essentially linked to family. Papa says that it doesn't matter whose name the deed is in: it will always be "Logan land." It is only when Cassie realizes the true seriousness of the threats to her family and their land that she cries "for...the land." Cassie now understands the importance of the land. The link it has with independence,
The Whites are so envious of the Logan land, that they would not have a problem with killing the Logan family. Because the Logans are Black and the Whites think of them as inferior, White people are resentful that a Black family can be better off than them. Lillian-Jeans’ father pushing Cassie into the road shows this because the Simms family are not as well off as the Logans as they do not own land but are socially higher because they are White.
I think the Logan children are ‘trained’ well in the ways of the harsh reality of racism. They are shielded from most of the racism, which their parents hide from them E.G. the Berrys’ burning, but are suddenly ensnared into racism in Strawberry and are given a shock, especially Cassie, which gives us a real sense of impact that life in Spokane County must have had on the Logan family as the children are more aware about the society they live in at the end of the book.