Summary
Chapter I is set in 1962 and introduces Elwood Curtis, a nine-year-old boy who lives in Tallahassee, Georgia, and spends most of his days helping his grandmother at the Richmond Hotel, where she works. A majority of Curtis’ family has worked at the hotel; if he were to take on an official job there, he would be the fourth generation from his family to be employed at the Richmond Hotel. Although he doesn’t work there officially, his grandmother brings him with her to her job since she doesn’t want him staying at home by himself.
Elwood receives a vinyl record for Christmas: Martin Luther King at Zion Hill. He listens to the record repeatedly, captivated by Dr. King’s speeches on racial inequality and segregation. Elwood, a young black boy, lives in a highly segregated world; when he accompanies his grandmother, Harriet, to her job at the Richmond Hotel, he is ridiculed by the rest of the staff. At the hotel, Elwood plays a game with himself in which he tries to peek out of the kitchen and see if there are any black patrons in the hotel’s dining room. During his three years working at the hotel, Elwood only witnesses three non-white people in the dining hall.
When Elwood is twelve, the hotel staff organize a dishwashing competition, with the prize being a set of encyclopedias that someone had found in one of the hotel rooms. The staff force Elwood to compete, and after he narrowly wins, they give him the encyclopedia set. At first Elwood is proud and excited to show his grandmother the encyclopedias. However, upon arriving home, Elwood discovers that the encyclopedias are blank—a fact that the rest of the staff knew, making him the butt of a cruel practical joke. The next day, Elwood decides to stop going to work at the hotel and begins to stay home.
After Elwood and his grandmother listen to the announcement of the Supreme Court's judgment in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that schools had to desegregate, Elwood begins to wonder when society will begin to show signs of change. During his everyday life, Elwood is often offered work by white men for his “industrious nature”; he accepts a job offer from Mr. Marconi, who runs a tobacco shop, when he is thirteen.
At the tobacco shop, Elwood reads Life magazine and its coverage of the civil rights movement, including photographs of police brutality against protesters and members of the movement participating in peaceful demonstrations. Elwood begins to look up to the men he sees in the photos and convinces Mr. Marconi to begin carrying several “black newspapers” like The Chicago Defender and The Crisis. It is revealed that Elwood’s mother left him and his grandmother and seldom writes, sometimes sending occasional postcards from her travels.
One day, when Elwood notices two young boys—Larry and Willie—stealing candy from Mr. Marconi’s shop, he confronts them and ends up getting into a fight with them, despite his typically peaceful and non-confrontational nature. During the fight, Larry asks Elwood if he “has any sense,” which pushes Elwood to consider the senselessness of the segregated world around them; as he relistens to At Zion Hill, he hears Dr. King. speak about how every man must consider himself significant, which pushes Elwood to take this statement as one of his life’s mottos. He begins to believe that no matter what, he must “remember who [he] is,” in spite of the multitude of oppressive forces that he faces every day.
Once he is old enough, Elwood attends Lincoln High School, where he receives second-hand textbooks from the local white high school in which the white students have written racial slurs. Elwood continues to devote himself to the movement, despite his grandmother’s disapproval. He attends a picket outside of a local movie theater, where he meets one of his high-school teachers, Mr. Hill. Mr. Hill was one of the only teachers to notice Elwood’s interest in the civil rights struggle and encourage him.
The protests begin to be met with violence and media coverage. After discovering that Elwood attended a protest, Harriet punishes Elwood by refusing to talk to him and taking away his record player. Elwood discovers that he feels increasingly motivated by the protest and more unified with his values and goals. Mr. Hill gives him James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son to read over summer break and Elwood spends his vacation writing letters on racial inequality to the local newspaper and to The Chicago Defender under a pseudonym.
Mr. Hill visits Elwood one day as he works in Mr. Marconi’s shop and encourages him to sign up for free college classes that are being offered for high-achieving students. Elwood signs up to take a course on British literature.
On the day that Elwood must attend his first college class, he attempts to hitch a ride to get to the school and is picked up by a black man named Rodney. While they are driving, the men get pulled over and accused of stealing the car that Rodney is driving.
Analysis
From the moment he is first introduced, Elwood is presented to the reader as a character devoted to the civil rights movement and justice—a passion that, while bringing him great purpose, also forces him to confront harsh racial segregation, retaliation, and punishment. His grandmother, Harriet, embodies a conservative attitude towards the movement. She is wary of losing her job and constantly warns Elwood against friendships with the local boys, who she sees as a bad influence. Harriet fixates on maintaining her relatively safe, albeit segregated, position within society, where she can continue to work at the same hotel that she and two generations of family have worked for. Unlike Elwood, she does not wish to openly or violently disrupt the status quo, even though it oppresses her.
Elwood, on the other hand, reacts to this systematic segregation. He is deeply embarrassed by the incident with the encyclopedias, wherein his desire for knowledge and his wish to educate himself by winning the encyclopedias becomes a point of humiliation. The entire act encompasses the unfair treatment Elwood receives as a young black boy in the world. He is forced to wash dishes in a competition to win the encyclopedias, performing basic manual labor just to earn the opportunity to read. At the hotel, he sees no black patrons. Instead, he only sees black men and women working in service roles, witnessing every day the unfair lack of opportunities that African American people face.
Likewise, Elwood faces a similar barrier to accessing education when attending Lincoln High School. His pursuit of knowledge becomes further impeded by racism and segregation; even his textbooks are marked by vulgar, violent racist language that white students from the local high school have written on them with the knowledge that the books would then be given to the black students at Lincoln High School. Mr. Hill strikes a contrast to the system that Elwood faces; he encourages the kids to cross out the vulgar slurs. Unlike Harriet, he takes on an active stance of resistance against the racist language and behavior that he sees.
Mr. Hill and Martin Luther King Jr.’s album are both important influences that push Elwood towards wanting to take on an active role in the civil rights movement. When Elwood listens to At Zion Hill, he hears Dr. King. speak about “Funtown,” an amusement park where kids are given tickets for good grades. Elwood strives to get good grades in order to one day fulfill his dream of getting into Funtown—something he can only do, however, when Funtown begins to allow black children to enter. Elwood has academic aspirations, even after growing out of his initial childhood dream.
Elwood’s desire for an education, which is exemplified by the encyclopedia prank, his relationship with Mr. Hill, and his dream of Funtown, is tragically thwarted by racism when the car he is in with Rodney is pulled over and the two men are arrested. The officer assumes that the car is stolen without asking the men any questions; the color of their skin is enough for him to presume that they are criminals. Elwood becomes the victim of racist prejudice, charged for a crime that he did not commit while simply trying to get to the local community college to receive an education that Mr. Hill recommended him for.
