2 new characters : Dr Joseph Morgan (the school superintendent) and Matthew Antoine (Grant’s former teacher)

2 major facts : Dr Morgan’s visit + the delivery of the first load of wood = 2 rituals that show that nothing is changing. Grant is to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor.

Chapter 7

Dr Morgan’s visit :

➢ Disparity between black and white schools

➢ Lack of communication between white administrators and black teachers.

➢ Indifference of Southern whites to the plight of black students and teachers

➢ Inspection of the students’ teeth = slave masters

➢ Dr Morgan’s communicates with groans and grunts

➢ Dr M’s referring to Wiggins as Higgins like in Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion + his inability to remember Grant’s name also reflects blacks’ loss of identity within the white community.

Chapter 8

A week after : Grant’s watching the students helping with the wood reminds him of his own experience as a young boy.(Cycle of poverty and violence for a lot of his schoolmates) + he remembers Matthew Antoine who told him to leave Bayonne; Was he right ?

Antoine the big mulatto from Poulaya despised his mixed blood and felt superior to anyone darker than he, illustrates the problem of colorism in the black community.

Mulattos = often the children of enslaved black women raped by their white masters.

Antoine’s self hatred and his hatred for his own people (unable to protect him from this racism) = example of the past being alive in the present.(legacy of slavery continues to haunt black Americans)

“Just do the best you can but it won’t matter” Matthew Antoine’s advice to Grant.

Summaries to be completed: Chapters 7 and 8

During the next few weeks, Grant awaits the annual visit by the superintendent of schools. He makes sure that his students appear clean and well behaved, since the superintendent could arrive at any moment. When the superintendent, Dr Joseph Morgan finally arrives, Grant notes Dr