NOVEMBER 24

Summary

The author continues hitchhiking in Alabama. A white man gives him a ride. The white man is at first nice as he starts asking Griffin about his family. Griffin realizes his true colors when he makes a snide remark at his wife. He then proceeds to tell the author how heÂ’s had every Negro girl before they ever got on his payroll and the author is stunned at the sheer hypocrisy of this white man erroneously discussing the NegroÂ’s lack of sexual morality. The white man then asks Griffin what he is doing in this part of the country and warns him that he will be taught a lesson if he creates any trouble.

Finally the author gets off and continues his walk. After a long walk, the author is very tired and goes to a wayside service station to buy some food and drink. At first the white owners refuse, but then they relent and sell him whatever he wants. Throughout this period, when Griffin is eating and drinking, he is aware of the discomfort of the old couple and therefore he leaves hurriedly.

Then the author starts hitch hiking again and this time he is given a ride by a young Negro sawmill worker. He tells Griffin how the whites, in order to maintain their control over the blacks, always keeps them in their debts, that is never allows them to completely pay off their debts. This man takes Griffin home for the night, although he is poor and has a large family of a wife and six kids. Although the family has little food, they share it with the author. The author suddenly remembers that today is the birthday of his daughter. As he looks at the children he notices the wide difference in the lives of these children and his own children. That night when the author goes out to urinate, he remembers, as a youngster, reading a description of a Negro boy stopping along a lonely path to urinate and he feels more profoundly than ever before the totality of his Negro-ness. He remembers his own children sleeping now in clean beds in a warm house. That night he has a nightmare, the same one that he has been having quite often. The next day Griffin travels to Montgomery. Sitting in the rest room, as he looks at himself in the mirror, he notices that his face has not only acquired the skin color of a Negro but that it has taken the forlorn expression that can be seen on the faces of so many Negroes. That night he calls up his wife and children and is glad to hear their voices.

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