Eleven years after the Haley's return home with baby Alex, the story opens in 1932 in Henning, Tennessee during the Great Depression, with Simon still unable to find a job as a professor. In the interim, the family continues to live with Bertha's parents and Simon works for his father-in-law hauling lumber. Simon finally receives and accepts a job offer as Director of Agriculture at A&M Institute in Normal, Alabama, and moves his family there. He meets and eventually works with a white Federal County Extension agent while visiting black farmers in the area. Simon shadows the agent, offering growing advice in an attempt to alter the old destructive farming practices, and notifying the farmers of new farm subsidies recently set up by President Roosevelt. However both men face resistance from the county's largest landowner, who not only refuses the advice, but wants to keep the subsidies for himself. When both men push too far, Simon's house is trashed and the agent is assaulted as a warning. Meanwhile, Bertha slowly takes ill, trying to hide it, but eventually succumbing.