South End Branch African and African American Authors Book Discussion via Zoom/Standing at the Scratch Line

Standing at the Scratch Line by Guy Johnson

Raised in the steamy bayous of New Orleans in the early 1900s, LeRoi "King" Tremain, who is caught up in his family's ongoing feud with the rival DuMont family, learns to fight. But when the teenage King mistakenly kills two white deputies during a botched raid on the DuMonts, the Tremains' fear of reprisal forces King to flee Louisiana. He thus embarks on an adventure that first takes him to France, where he fights in World War I as a member of the segregated 369th Battalion, where he finds himself locked in combat with American soldiers in a bigoted Army as well as with Germans. When he returns to America, he battles organized crime in Jazz Age Harlem, the KKK in Louisiana, and crooked politicians trying to destroy a black township in Oklahoma. During all this, King Tremain is driven by two principal forces: He wants to be treated with respect, and he wants to create a family dynasty much like the one he left behind in Louisiana.

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