They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!

The original novel (published in 1965), written by John Ball, is a story of Virgil Tibbs, a Negro homicide investigator. The death of orchestra-conductor Enrico Mantoli and a series of other events lead up to him in charge of a murder investigation in Wells, Carolina. This is much to the dismay of Bill Gillespie, the extremely prejudice police chief. The movie version (released in 1967), also features Mr. Tibbs as the leader of a murder investigation. However, the setting is Sparta, Mississippi

Generally, what happens when you drive over a dirt road, the dirt flies up and gets on your car. Virgil remembered that there wasn’t dust on Sam’s car when he took him in for questioning, which proved that Sam hadn’t gone down the same route. Virgil Tibbs checked the garage that held the official cars. He found out that even if Sam had driven down the dirt road for a short trip, there would still be a little bit of dirt on the car. He decided to check the weather for any rain and he didn’t find any

We are first introduced to Virgil Tibbs at a train station, where he sits silently upon a bench marked “coloured.” He appears to be quiet and shy, and possibly scared of the Caucasian officer who arrests him, but we are soon to realise that there is a lot more to Mr. Tibbs than just his skin colour. Confident, intelligent, and determined are some words used to characterize a great person, and all of these words apply to Virgil Tibbs. Virgil Tibbs’ confidence is evident from an early stage in the

Whiteburn’s statement “As long as I have been in this community, this is the first time that I have ever been consulted by the police. I take it as an honor.” 2. Virgil comes to the Reverend for help in his investigation. a) What two things are Tibbs interested in discovering? b) Summarize additional plot information given to the reader by means of Virgil’s interview with the Rev. 3. Explain why the following statements are significant: “To the Best of my Knowledge, no one