In this essay, Stepto focuses on the schoolhouse episode, "a staple event in African American narratives no doubt because it is remembered or imagined as a formative first scene of racial self-awareness...perhaps the first day of school, in which the narrative's protagonist is 'schooled' in being colored, sometimes made aware for the first time that he or she is colored."
Stepto presents the narrative of W.E.B. Dubois from his The Souls of Black Folk, in which a "tall newcomer" girl refuses to accept a visiting card from the young Dubois in a classwide exchange. Stepto goes on to analyze parallel episodes in James Weldon Johnson's book The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Stepto then examines Obama's own schoolhouse episode in the light of this literary tradition.
This provocative essay contains much food for thought for students, parents, teachers, and anyone else interested in questions of race and identity. We hope you'll add your thoughts below.
A Reading from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston's Niece
W.E.B. DuBois on Double Consciousness
How Novels Begin: The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man
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