Chapter Thirty-Two Summary

Eugene speculates that given how racist many white people are in the Mohiga Valley, it is amazing that only one non-rioting black citizen of the town was mistakenly shot as a prisoner on the lam. In fact, it turns out that during the prison riot, a young black man whose father held elective office was injured slightly in the hand, shot at by police mistaking him for a prisoner on the run. The rest of the prisoners who were killed during the riot were all black but actual prisoners, so the law was within its right to shoot them, even if they were largely unarmed and in very small numbers. Eugene tells the reader he is grateful that although the prison riot was once big news, it has now died down and is largely forgotten, as is his fate awaiting trial...