“Streets like the one she lived on were no accident. They were the North’s lynch mobs, she thought bitterly; the method the big cities used to keep Negroes in their place. And she began thinking of Pop unable to get a job; of Jim slowly disintegrating because he, too, couldn’t get a job, and of the subsequent wreck of their marriage; of Bub left to his own devices after school. From the time she was born, she had been hemmed into an ever-narrowing space, until now she was very nearly walled in and the wall had been built up brick by brick by eager white hands.” RacePovertyRacismAfrican AmericansBlacksWhitesInstitutional RacismNeighborhoodsGhettos Book:The Street Source: The Street
“This was, by comparison, a safe, secure, clean world. And looking at it, she thought it must be rather pleasant to be able to live anywhere you wanted to, just so you could pay the rent, instead of having to find out first whether it was a place where colored people were permitted to live.” RaceRacismSafetyAfrican AmericansBlacksInstitutional RacismHomesNeighborhoods Book:The Street Source: The Street
“A cop on a motorcycle roared alongside, waved them to the curb. 'Goin' to a fire?' he demanded. He peered into the car and Lutie saw a slight stiffening of his face. That meant he had seen they were colored. She waited for his next words with a wincing feeling, thinking it was like having an old wound that had never healed and you could see someone about to knock against it and it was too late to get out of the way, and there was that horrible tiny split second of time when you waited for the contact, anticipating the pain and quivering away from it before it actually started. The cop's mouth twisted into an ugly line.” RaceRacismPoliceAfrican AmericansBlacksRace RelationsWhitesCopsInstitutional Racism Book:The Street Source: The Street
“The women work because the white folks give them jobs—washing dishes and clothes and floors and windows. The women work because for years now the white folks haven’t liked to give black men jobs that paid enough for them to support their families. And finally it gets to be too late for some of them. Even wars don’t change it. The men get out of the habit of working and the houses are old and gloomy and the walls press in. And the men go off, move on, slip away, find new women. Find younger women.” RaceRacismBlack WomenAfrican AmericansBlacksWorkingWhitesInstitutional RacismBlack Men Book:The Street Source: The Street
