Section 3, South by Southeast, Chapters 1-14 Summary and Analysis

William leaves the monastery the next morning and continues his trek across Georgia crossing the Chattahoochee River and on into Alabama. William's trip takes on political and social significance when he reaches Selma and meets James Walker and Charles Davis, two young black men who inform William of the state of racial relations in the South. Not being from the South, William had expected that the racial tension between blacks and whites would have dissipated after Martin Luther King Jr.'s marches from Selma to Montgomery. Both James and Charles inform William that not much has changed and the situation for blacks is not much improved in the ten years since Martin Luther King led the marches.

As William drives through Mississippi he is struck by the number of Indian-sounding names...