How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
In 1936 there were very few among them who lived as well as Macon Dead. (1.2.32)
Again, we realize how few affluent black Americans there were in America at this time. American society’s structure and systems prevent black Americans from escaping poverty.
Quote #2
"Ain’t but two toilets downtown they let colored in: Mayflower Restaurant and Sears." (1.2.46)
While we readers predominantly dwell in the black community of Not Doctor Street, we hear stories of segregation, the separating of Americans of color and white Americans based solely on skin color.
Quote #3
"Don’t nobody want no cheap home brew. The Depression’s over," Hagar said. "Everybody got to work now. They can afford to buy Four Roses." (1.2.48)
We get a glimpse of American society here, seeing that while the country has risen out of great economic depression, there are still large pockets of American society that live in abject poverty.
Quote #4
"Your father was a slave?"
"What kind of foolish question is that? Course he was. Who hadn’t been in 1869? They all had to register. Free and not free. Free and used-to-be-slaves. Papa was in his teens and went to sign up, but the man behind the desk was drunk. He asked Papa where he was born. Papa said Macon. Then he asked him who owned him. Papa said, ‘I’m free.’ Well, the Yankee wrote it all down, but in the wrong spaces." (1.2.53)
While in American folklore and mythology, the Yankees are often portrayed as "good" (and the Confederates as "enemy"), this story complicates the mythology. In a process that is hugely meaningful and significant and connected with the rendering of inalienable rights to those who used to be slaves, we see a Yankee soldier is dismissive of the process (through his drunkenness). We also wonder why black Americans who were not "used-to-be-slaves" had to register. What was the purpose of this registration? Such dismissive, disrespectful behavior, results in the misnaming of a human. The flippancy of the Yankee soldier shows us a side of American history that is not told.
Quote #5
"And you not going to have no ship under your command to sail on, no train to run, and you can join the 332nd if you want to and shoot down a thousand German planes all by yourself and land in Hitler’s backyard and whip him with your own hands, but you never going to have four stars on your shirt front, or even three." (1.3.60)
America’s hypocrisy is vividly parsed out by Railroad Tommy. Black Americans serve in battle to protect their country. When they return, no acts of bravery are recognized or honored by this country for which they risked their lives. Guitar tells us later on of war veterans who were not only ignored by American society upon returning from war, but were blinded and lynched by fellow citizens.
Quote #6
A young Negro boy had been found stomped to death in Sunflower County, Mississippi. There were no questions about who stomped him – his murderers has boasted freely – and there were no questions about the motive. The boy had whistled at some white woman, refused to deny he had slept with others, and was a Northerner visiting the South. His name was Till. (1.3.80)
Though nearly a century after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, black Americans do not have the same rights as white Americans. White people can murder a young black man in the South without being punished.
Quote #7
"South’s bad," Porter said. "Bad. Don’t nothing change in the good old U.S. of A. Bet his daddy got his balls busted off in the Pacific somewhere."
"If they ain’t busted already, them crackers will see to it. Remember them soldiers in 1918?" […] The men began to trade tales of atrocities, first stories they had heard, then those they’d witnessed, and finally the things that had happened to themselves. A litany of personal humiliation, outrage, and anger turned sicklelike back to themselves as humor. They laughed then, uproariously, about the speed with which they had run, the pose they had assumed, the ruse they had invented to escape or decrease some threat to their manliness, their humanness. (1.3.83)
Here we see the barbershop congregants tell personal stories of injustice and intolerance. These hateful acts are no longer framed by the radio, the news, or the television, but are brought home and made immediate to us, the reader. Does anything change in the good old U.S. of A.?
Quote #8
"Where’s the money, the state, the country to finance our justice? You say Jews try their catches in a court. Do we have a court? Is there one courthouse in one city in the country where a jury would convict them? There are places right now where a N***o still can’t testify against a whole man. Where the judge, the jury, the court, are legally bound to ignore anything a N***o has to say. What that means is that a black man is a victim of a crime only when a white man says he is. Only then. If there was anything like or near justice or courts when a cracker kills a N***o, there wouldn’t have to be no Seven Days. But there ain’t; so we are. And we do it without money, without support, without lobbyists, and without illusions!" (1.6.160)
Without courts to render justice, are the Seven Days justified?
Quote #9
The reverend turned around and showed Milkman the knot the size of a walnut that grew behind his ear. "Some of us went to Philly to try and march in an Armistice Day parade. This was after the First World War. We were invited and had a permit, but the people, the white people, didn’t like us being there. They started a fracas. You know, throwing rocks and calling us names. They didn’t care nothing ‘bout the uniform. Anyway, some police on horseback came – to quiet them down, we thought. They ran us down. Right under their horses. This here’s what a hoof can do. Ain’t that something?" (2.10.233)
Milkman, the city boy, seems shocked that no one prosecuted the men who shot his grandfather. As a way of demonstrating how things work in Pennsylvania, Reverend Cooper tells this story of getting trampled by horses when attempting to march in an Armistice Day parade. Philadelphia is where the Constitution of America was penned, and the word "armistice" means "truce." Reverend Cooper’s wound is evidence of both the irony of this experience and of the hypocrisy of American society.
Quote #10
"Oh, that’s just some old folks’ lie they tell around here. Some of those Africans they brought over here as slaves could fly. A lot of them flew back to Africa." (2.14.322)
Besides resonating with all of the flying that goes on in Song, we hear for the first time the widely perpetuated mythology of slaves who flew back to Africa. This mythology was not just specific to Shalimar, Virginia, but was cultivated among all of the regions that facilitated the Atlantic slave trade.