 After the preacher is killed, the families of the black students hesitate to send their children back to the white high school for fear of more violence, but McDaniel encourages them, and walks the students to school himself through the town past the disapproving glares of other white townspeople.After the students enter the school, several townspeople confront and severely beat McDaniel, causing him to be hospitalized with broken ribs, internal injuries and the loss of his eye.Cramer secretly meets with Ella, who is upset and worried about her father, and convinces her that the townspeople are planning to kill her father and that the only way to save him is for Ella to do what Cramer says.