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Cheryl-Ann Buford
Clyde Richter is Amal’s first attorney, a White man who claims to fight for justice but never actually proves he’s on Amal’s side. Amal quickly comes to distrust him, noting how Clyde puts on one face in private and another in court. His defense is lukewarm at best—he fails to adequately challenge the prosecution’s narrative and recruits Ms. Rinaldi, Amal’s White, biased former art teacher, to testify as Amal’s character witness. Her damaging testimony solidifies Amal’s portrayal as an angry Black teen. Umi eventually fires Clyde and hires Tarana Hudson to represent Amal instead, a Black attorney who sees him clearly and believes in his innocence. Ultimately, Clyde is someone who claims to care but whose support is superficial, mirroring the very systems that failed Amal in the first place.
Clyde Richter Quotes in Punching the Air
The Punching the Air quotes below are all either spoken by Clyde Richter or refer to Clyde Richter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Pages 46-93 Quotes
The only book
I gave Clyde was
The Rose That Grew from Concrete
I was definitely
trying to tell him something
because Tupac was a poet
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Pages 144-188 Quotes
Seeing my mother makes me feel like
there’s a hole in my heart
Seeing my lawyer makes me feel like
he put that hole there
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Clyde Richter Character Timeline in Punching the Air
The timeline below shows where the character Clyde Richter appears in Punching the Air. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Pages 3-45
Two Mouths. Clyde, Amal’s White lawyer, insists he won’t be found guilty. But Amal notices that Clyde speaks...
(full context)
Blank Page. Clyde may be Amal’s defense attorney, but he’s still a White man, and there’s a limit...
(full context)
Pages 46-93
Slave Ship. In the aftermath of the verdict’s reading, Amal tries to ask Clyde what happened, but the courtroom is too chaotic, too loud. He imagines water flooding the...
(full context)
Conversations with God. During the trial, Amal had asked Clyde why he wasn’t on the prosecution’s “side,” and Clyde had explained that he worked for...
(full context)
The Entombment. Amal is taken to the jail behind the courtroom, nicknamed “the tombs,” where Clyde informs him that he will be given neither a life nor death sentence. Amal compares...
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...arrested, though he believed it was “the end of [his] life,” he was grateful when Clyde gave him books to escape into—at least initially.
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Books. Clyde gave Amal a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, unaware that Amal had read...
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Pages 144-188
Conversations with God IV. On Visitors Day, which happens once every two weeks, Umi and Clyde come by to see Amal. Clyde says that they can appeal the conviction, but it...
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...to take full advantage of Visiting Days. But Amal is depressed, and seeing Umi and Clyde only reminds him of the ways he’s failed the people he loves.
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Pages 232-286
Hope III. On Visitors Day, Clyde tells Amal that Jeremy Mathis is improving and could wake up from his coma any...
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Pages 343-386
Hope IV. On the phone, Umi tells Amal that she fired Clyde and has hired a new attorney who “gets” them, Tarana Hudson. Umi hands the phone...
(full context)
