Jazz Race Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

Then long come a summer in 1917 and after those whitemen took that pipe from around my head, I was brand new for sure because they almost killed me. (5.28)

Gross history time, part one million: Joe gets beaten badly during a riot, and is only saved because someone stops a group of white men from "finishing him off." Oh, and Joe didn't do a thing to deserve it. Just racism being disgusting, as per usual.

Quote #8

They were bringing in swarms of colored to work during the War. Crackers in the South mad cause Negroes were leaving; crackers in the North mad cause they were coming. (5.29)

The Great Migration in a nutshell, everyone: People are miffed in the South because a part of the labor pool is leaving, and people are miffed in the North because the labor pool is expanding so rapidly. Also, everyone is being racist. Ugh.

Quote #9

Her state of mind when she moved from Baltimore back to Vesper County must have been a study. She'd left Wordsworth, the county seat, a slave, and returned in 1888 a free woman. (6.2)

True Belleleaves with her scandalously pregnant "mistress" and goes to Baltimore, and by the time she comes back to Virginia, she's free. This gives you a bit of the time-span we're dealing with: Jazz covers more than a fifty years.