Marie Navigating DC

By Kenton Rambsy

Edward P. Jones shows how older residents of DC use knowledge of their neighborhoods and relationships with neighbors to keep getting around the city on their own.

In “Marie,” an 86 year old widow makes her own way across DC, from Claridge Towers to a Social Security office a mile away. She plans the trip hours ahead, rising in the dark and laying out money for the bus. She walks ten minutes from 12th and M to the stop at 14th and K and takes an earlier bus, “lest there be trouble.”

After a young man grabs at her coat on 13th Street, Marie carries her knife even to the trash. She has learned where trouble can come from and leaves home ready for it. Marie could make the walk alone, but she lets her friend Wilamena come along to the bus stop, “but no farther.” Their walks show the support neighbors at Claridge Towers give one another.

The trip crosses very different parts of DC, and Marie knows them. In 1980 the area around Claridge Towers was 73 percent Black, her bus stop 37 percent and the office 8 percent. She moves from blocks where neighbors know her to an office where she waits alone for hours.

Following Marie across town, Jones shows that getting around DC takes knowledge of the city and the support of neighbors.

Jones shows how knowing her blocks and a neighbor’s help keep an older woman moving through DC on her own.

In Edward P. Jones’s “Marie,” an 86 year old woman travels about a mile from Claridge Towers to a Social Security office in Northwest DC. In 1980 the census areas around her home, her bus stop and the office were 73, 37 and 8 percent Black. Near home she has neighbors who know her. At the office she waits alone.

Related: 

• Black Short Story Findings

Dialogue in Zora Neale Hurston’s "The Gilded Six Bits"

Jade Harrison

Where characters talk in a story can show how their relationship changes.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s “The Gilded Six Bits” (1933), Joe and Missie May Banks, a married couple, talk to each other most in their kitchen.

Before Joe finds Otis D. Slemmons in their bedroom with Missie May, the couple speaks 931 words in the kitchen. Afterward, they speak only 30 words there, a drop of about 97 percent.

In their early kitchen conversations, Joe and Missie May tease each other and talk about people and places outside their home. Missie May praises Joe: “God took pattern after a pine tree and built you noble.” Joe answers, “Ah know Ah can’t hold no light to Otis D. Slemmons.”

After Joe discovers Slemmons, their kitchen conversations nearly disappear. In the whole story, Missie May’s words drop from 575 to 114, and Joe’s drop from 704 to 275. Hurston does not depict a fight. She shows how the betrayal changes their relationship through how little they talk.

Missie May speaks all 114 of her words to Joe, but Joe speaks only 91 words to her. He speaks 169 words to a white clerk at a candy store in Orlando, and 69 percent of them are about Slemmons. The story ends at their front door, not in the kitchen. Missie May’s last line echoes her first words to Joe: “Joe Banks, Ah hear you chunkin’ money in mah do’way.”

Hurston depicts a marriage in conflict by removing dialogue from the kitchen, where the couple once talked most.

Before the betrayal, Joe and Missie May’s words to each other drops by 97 percent. Across the whole story, Missie May’s words fall 80 percent, from 575 to 114. Joe’s fall 61 percent, from 704 to 275.

Related

• Black Short Story Findings

Black Literature is Important. We Should Be Seeing It More.

Albert Smith

Black students at SIUE want to read and engage with literature that reflects their own experiences and culture.

In a survey, both men and women students overwhelmingly agreed that it was important to read works that reflect Black people, experiences, or cultures. 72.9% of of first-year Black men students and 77.9% of first-year Black women students agreed or strongly agreed when surveyed. Only 1.9% of the men students and 0.5% of the women students disagreed or strongly disagreed that it was important to read works that reflect Black people, experiences, or cultures.

These numbers were striking as there is almost a unanimous opinion that reading Black literature is important. The numbers suggest that what students at SIUE consider important may not be what they are engaging with within the classroom. Black literature despite being identified by Black students as being important, is oftentimes only covered in the African American literature courses.

There may be opportunity in exploring Black literature in spaces outside of AALS courses at SIUE.

Related: 

• Black Readers Findings

Great Expectations, Different Concerns

By Kai Steward

First-year students showed comparable results across the entirety of the survey taken during orientation. The only diverging results were the students’ biggest college-reading concerns.

Around 46 percent of women students were concerned with the level of difficulty of the texts. Meanwhile, 39 percent of men students were concerned with staying focused while reading. Women students are worried about understanding the text, while men students are worried about their ability to stay focused.

The focus of the students' concerns is consistent with the line of thinking that the motivations of women and men students differ. Most of both men and women students agreed that they could focus on reading for 30 minutes, so their expectation for college reading is that it will exceed their 30-minute comfort zone, and their level of reading comprehension.

Regardless of the reason, many students men and women, do not feel prepared for college-level reading, while educators are trying how to better gauge their readiness and, more importantly, their willingness to learn.

Related: 

• Black Readers Findings

Revisiting “Reading and Community”

By Joyce Woodard

Perhaps reading within a community that makes you feel seen does make the reading experience better, but why?

In my February 6, 2026, piece, "Reading and Community” I explained how, since being in college, I have found that when you are reading within a community, it makes reading more enjoyable. In that piece, I didn’t really dive into why I didn’t think reading alone was less enjoyable, and I think I should have focused more on that. In hindsight, I think the entry should have been less about how it’s more fun to read when you are reading with others, and more about how to make reading more pleasurable alone.

I’m glad I revisited this piece because it’s changing the way I view reading again. When I wrote this earlier in the year, I had already begun rethinking the way I read, and I think this piece encapsulates my process of becoming a more consistent reader well.

Related: 

• Black Readers Findings

The James Baldwin Revival and the Richard Wright Surge

Publishing developments can affect young readers at pivotal moments and have lasting effects on their intellectual and professional lives.

Reading William Maxwell's "James Baldwinisn Now: A Short History of the Baldwin Revival, 1998-2024" had me reflecting on what we might call the Richard Wright surge and what it meant for my own intellectual and professional development. Maxwell charts the Baldwin revival, which began taking shape with the 1998 release of Library of America editions of Baldwin's early novels and collected essays, edited by Toni Morrison.

In 1991, Arnold Rampersad edited Library of America editions of Wright's works, and publishers subsequently produced new and revised paperback editions, making his writings more accessible and easier for professors to incorporate into their courses. Consequently, in the late 1990s, as an undergraduate at Tougaloo College, I took a course devoted entirely to Wright, taught by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

I view the publication of Wright materials as a surge rather than a revival because there had always been considerable interest in Wright. However, the reissuing of his works gave that interest new momentum and expanded opportunities for readers, teachers, and scholars to engage his writings. Although bibliographies document aspects of these developments, I wish we had more essays on Wright, Toni Morrison, and other writers like Maxwell's essay on Baldwin. Such accounts move beyond lists of publications to offer narrative interpretations of literary developments and their broader implications.

Without those Wright editions, and without my close proximity to a Wright scholar who was keenly aware of developments in publishing, my relationship to Wright and African American literary studies might have taken a different course. The convergence of publishing activity, scholarly expertise, and classroom instruction helped shape my intellectual trajectory. I was definitely a beneficiary of the Richard Wright surge, the way I'm sure subsequent emerging scholars were beneficiaries of the Baldwin revival. 

Related: 

• William Maxwell Pulls a Kinnamon with His "James Baldwinism Now" Article/Survey

William Maxwell Pulls a Kinnamon with His "James Baldwinism Now" Article/Survey

I've long viewed the late Kenneth Kinnamon as our greatest individual bibliographer. After all, the two Richard Wright bibliographies he published collectively include more than 20,000 bibliographic entries. Beyond the sheer volume of material he assembled, I've always been intrigued by the effort to document and trace critical and popular responses to a writer's work over time.

I thought of Kinnamon's work when I encountered William Maxwell's essay/survey, "James Baldwinism Now: A Short History of the Baldwin Revival, 1998–2024." The range and scope of Maxwell's coverage are truly impressive, as he brings together an extraordinary array of publications, cultural productions, and critical responses to Baldwin. For bibliographers like me, the piece is inspiring. It demonstrates what's possible when someone takes on the ambitious task of tracing a writer's reception across multiple decades and platforms.

In the article, Maxwell "charts and theorizes the course of US-based Baldwinism, my term for the inventive retrospection that made James Baldwin the twentieth-century African American writer most treasured in the twenty-first." His survey offers a compelling account of how Baldwin became such a prominent literary and cultural figure long after his death.

Although our names are misspelled (happens all the time, no worries), Kenton and I make an appearance in the footnotes for our Public Books article, “How The New York Times Covers Black Writers.” That article, as you know, forms the basis of our book. It's encouraging to see our work included in a project that takes such a wide-ranging approach to documenting Baldwin's remarkable reception.

Related:

• The James Baldwin Revival and the Richard Wright Surge

Where the Talking Happens in Hurston's “Spunk”

By Jade Harrison

In “Spunk,” nearly 80 percent of the dialogue takes place in Joe Clarke’s store, and Elijah Moseley speaks 44 percent of all the dialogue. The story’s key events, including Lena Kanty’s six words and Spunk Banks’s dying words, reach readers only through Elijah’s retelling in the store and on the street.

Related: 

• Black Short Story Findings