Travels With Charley By John Steinbeck

In Travels with Charley, Steinbeck is traveling through the U.S. in the early 1960s, when race relations and civil rights were a hot topic, so it's no wonder that race comes up quite a bit. We should warn you that Steinbeck hears and sees some pretty ugly things related to this topic while he's out there on the road, particularly in the South. In fact, in the great climax of the story, he comes across a group of women (the "Cheerleaders") who have made it their mission to protest school integration in New Orleans. Their method? Screaming obscenities. At small children. Yep, like we said: ugly.
Steinbeck seems to want to keep some distance and objectivity from the events he's describing, but he can't resist calling out the "Cheerleaders" for