Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is set in Mississippi at the height of the Great Depression; most of the action occurs between 1933 and 1934. The Logan farm, comprising four hundred acres of land, is home to the narrator Cassie, her parents, her three brothers, and her paternal grandmother. Cassie's grandfather, Paul Logan, purchased this land in two separate transactions, acquiring two hundred acres in 1886 and two hundred more in 1918. The family still owes a mortgage on the latter purchase, and the first requires tax payments.

Ever since the price of cotton fell in 1930, Cassie's father, David Logan, has had to take jobs in other cities during the off-season to fulfill his financial obligations. The Logans are the sole black property owners in this community, the only black family in the narrative to escape the sharecropping system. Their farm borders a dense forest, with an ancient oak tree serving...