How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I didn't know whether to be excited for her or worried. All people ever talked about after church were the Negroes and whether they'd get their civil rights. Who was winning—the white people's team or the colored people's team? Like it was a do-or-die contest. When that minister from Alabama, Reverend Martin Luther King, got arrested last month in Florida for wanting to eat in a restaurant, the men at church acted like the white people's team had won the pennant race. I knew they would not take this news lying down, not in one million years (1.145)
Lily is reflecting upon the signing of the Civil Rights Act, which she and Rosaleen watched live on TV. Lily is not super politically motivated or active, but she is aware of the various racial attitudes and prejudices the people around her (e.g., T. Ray, the men in her church, etc.) hold.
Quote #2
An uneasy feeling settled in my stomach. Last night the television had said a man in Mississippi was killed for registering to vote, and I myself had overheard Mr. Bussey, one of the deacons, say to T. Ray, 'Don't you worry, they're gonna make 'em write their names in perfect cursive and refuse them a card if they forget so much as to dot an I or make a loop in their y' (1.208).
Apparently, a lot of Lily's fellow churchgoers hold some not-so-nice attitudes toward African Americans, and she provides us with a plum example of this tendency here. The plan, just to be clear, is to deny African Americans of their rights as U.S. citizens by enforcing standards that a white person wouldn't have to meet. Talk about unfair and just plain wrong. It is notable that T. Ray seems to hang on to some prejudices himself, since Mr. Bussey feels the need to reassure him that they'll do everything they can to enforce racially motivated vote suppression.
Quote #3
It's funny how you forget the rules. She was not supposed to be inside here. Every time a rumor got going about a group of Negroes coming to worship with us on Sunday morning, the deacons stood locked-arms across the church stems to turn them away. We loved them in the Lord, Brother Gerald said, but they had their own places (1.240).
And here's another charming story: When Lily and Rosaleen have to stop and rest on their way into Sylvan, Lily thinks nothing of visiting the church, forgetting that African Americans aren't allowed in—and, in fact, that the deacons have gone so far as to form a physical barrier to prevent them from entering. It's also notable that Lily "forgets" the rules about segregation—this clues us in to the fact that Lily isn't quite as preoccupied with race-related issues as the other white people around her.
Quote #4
T. Ray did not think colored women were smart. Since I want to tell the whole truth, which means the worst parts, I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white. Lying on the cot in the honey house, though, all I could think was August is so intelligent, so cultured, and I was surprised by this. That's what let me know I had some prejudice buried inside me (4.103).
Here, Lily confirms some of T. Ray's prejudices here and admits some of her own.
Quote #5
This was a great revelation—not that I was white but that it seemed like June might not want me here because of my skin color. I hadn't known this was possible—to reject people for being white (5.38).
Lily has just overheard a conversation between June and August, in which June pushed back against having Lily stay on at the pink house. There are a number of reasons why June might have been nervous about housing a runaway white teenager, but Lily had never really considered them. Here, she seems to interpret it as pure prejudice. Hey, there are two sides to every coin.
Quote #6
. . . I looked around me, and it was like seeing everything through a train's thick window. A blur passed before me. A moving wave of color. I am not one of you, I thought (6.88).
This moment occurs when Lily is about to participate in the ritual of touching the statue of Our Lady of Chains but stops short when June stops playing accompaniment (ostensibly because she disapproves of Lily's participation). In that moment, Lily seems to feel totally alienated and out of place in this community, largely because of June's hostile behavior.
Quote #7
At my school they made fun of colored people's lips and noses. I myself had laughed at these jokes, hoping to fit in. Now I wished I could pen a letter to my school to be read at opening assembly that would tell them how wrong we'd all been. You should see Zachary Taylor, I'd say (7.14).
When she meets Zach, August's other assistant, Lily finds still more prejudices and misconceptions within herself that she wants to shake off. She repents them quickly when she finds herself powerfully drawn to her new co-worker.
Quote #8
'Lily, I like you better than any girl I've ever known, but you have to understand, there are people who would kill boys like me for even looking at girls like you' (7.202).
She and Zach definitely end up like liking each other, but as Zach notes here, being together romantically would be extremely dangerous, particularly for him. For this reason, they decide to hold off on the romance stuff. For now.
Quote #9
But I will tell you this secret thing, which not one of them saw, not even August, the thing that brought me the most cause for gladness. It was how Sugar-Girl said what she did, like I was truly one of them. Not one person in the room said, Sugar-Girl, really, talking about white people like that and we have a white person present. They didn't even think of me being different (10.162).
Lily is talking about a moment in which Sugar-Girl casually makes fun of some foolishness going on at a white mortuary without thinking to tiptoe around the fact that she's speaking to a white person. To Lily, this moment indicates that Sugar-Girl sees Lily as part of her circle (as opposed to a member of the group she was lampooning). Lily is thrilled.
Quote #10
'We can't think of changing our skin,' he said. 'Change the world—that's how we gotta think' (11.12).
Zach says this to Lily when she starts to imagine what their lives would be like if she were African American. He sees such thinking as futile, preferring to focus on changing prejudices rather than biology.