Jim Crow Oral History
“You’re looking for a place where this oppression doesn’t occur. Basically, that’s up North. So, you start looking towards getting out of this system of oppression.”
This quote is by Clifford Boxely who wrote about his personal experience in school when he was younger. This quote reminded me of Grant. Grant went to college so he could get more out of life than working on a plantation like his aunt and Miss Emma had. He planned on getting and education and becoming a teacher, that way he would have more respect, not only from his students, but from society. He wanted to escape the social structure where whites were always superior to blacks. When Grant’s aunt and Miss Emma ask him to talk to Henri Pichot and go to the jail to visit Jefferson, Grant is reminded “this system of oppression.” He is inspected and talked down to.
