Race Relations

The troubled race relations that have characterized the South throughout its history are the backdrop for "That Evening Sun," even if they are not the main concern of the story. Nancy, the main character in the story, is a typical African-American woman of the South in the Jim Crow era. "Jim Crow" was a name given to the system of laws, customs, and ideas by which the white South kept its black Southerners oppressed. In this era, which lasted from the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s until the relative success of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s, black Southerners were denied most basic civil rights—including, but not limited to, the right to vote, to have a fair trial, and to have freedom of expression.

In addition, the Jim Crow system enabled white Southerners to take economic advantage of African Americans. Black Southerners...