He looked around at all of them. "Won't it ever stop? I do all I can to stop it. Every day of my life, I do all I can to stop it. Won't it ever stop?"

This statement by Gil Boutan at the end of Chapter 10 is a poignant cry for racial harmony in the South. Gil is emotionally breaking down after visiting the location where his brother was murdered. Gil finds a crowd of armed black men waiting and he finds Candy Marshall who confesses to the crime. Gil sees the structures of racial separation and violence that surround him and cries out with his pain about it all. Gil feels that he has been helping to improve race relations by pairing himself with a black player on the football team. Gil is a character caught by the violent racist history of the South, as are all people in the South. The historical violence in Gil's family makes his imprisonment in their legacy particularly obvious. Gil wants to remain within his family, but longs to free himself from their history so that racial harmony can thrive. Gil's cry presents the need for Southerners to free themselves from their historical bounds. It is only through the means of such liberation that future harmony can occur.