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Segregation In The Nickel Boys

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In the mid-1900s, segregation was a controversy going on in the world. With Martin Luther King Jr. becoming more popular while fighting against segregation, young Elwood is influenced by his impactful speeches. Throughout the novel The Nickel Boys, Elwood learns more about himself and overcomes his fears which leads him to take a call to action. Overcoming the pressure of society today is the biggest step to having a meaningful life. One's life will never be lived to the fullest if action is never taken. In order to live a meaningful life, one must learn to overcome societal pressures. In The Nickel Boys, Elwood wants justice. While at Nickel, Elwood is brought to the white house and is beaten multiple times for standing up for someone. Just like Elwood, if one wants to make a difference in their life, they need to take action for change to happen. “If it is true for you, it is true for someone else, and you are no longer alone.” In reality, there will always be someone else going through the same issues. By Elwood getting his …show more content…

If one doesn’t try to make a life for themself, then nothing good will come from it. Nobody would ever get anywhere in life if they don’t fight for it. If MLK never fought against segregation, who knows what the world would be like today. While at Nickel, Elwood fought to get the truth about Nickel out for the world to hear. “All the men on the website were white. Who spoke for the black boys? It was time someone did.” Even if just one person speaks up and calls to action, it is still a start. Support from others can also significantly help someone keep fighting. Having a support system is a big part for people to keep people trying hard. Working hard to make a life for oneself is necessary for everyone since one won’t get anywhere in life if they don’t do anything about it. By taking action, one is willing to fight for better results and most importantly, for a better

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In Part I of The Nickel Boys, Elwood Curtis is under the rule of the social hierarchy and doesn’t know how to stand up for himself, but finds a spark of advocacy. When Elwood goes to his history class, the other students and him look at all the demeaning slurs in the book, “but as the school year went on, the students of Lincoln High School stopped noticing the curses… Why hadn’t anyone told them to do this before” (Whitehead 29). Although the clear social status was brought on by Mr. Hill, Elwood illustrated just how hurtful the social hierarchy can be. It hurt at first, however over time the terms became so prevalent that they were meaningless.

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John Lewis, in his speech “You must find a way to get into trouble, good trouble” (2014), argues that others shouldn’t stand in the shadows, that they should go out and make their voices heard. Lewis supports his argument by using historically accurate evidence such as referring to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. and their advocacy for civil rights; he also uses personal experiences to further his argument. Lewis’s purpose was to empower others to make their voices heard in order to effect change. Lewis speaks in a calm, relaxed, but serious tone for the graduating class of 2014 from Emory University. His speech came in the same year that Eric Garner and Micheal Brown were murdered after being racially profiled, giving his speech a particular

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MLK Jr. in this speech tells his audience of the grave injustice that is happening all around him. Instead of involving himself in a violent movement to stir up large amounts of hate, he instead leads a nonviolent movement where he and his followers protest nonviolently in the streets and local shops. They were bombarded by water hoses and attack dogs because of their protest, but continued to press on regardless of the peril that they put themselves in. They were fighting, in MLK Jr.’s mind, an “illegal unconstitutional junction” that the government had set up to persecute the black community in America (MLK Jr. 216). He compares their situation to Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan, where the Samaritan was not expected to help the dying man out, but did so anyways out of the compassion in his heart, spending his own money to put the man into a good inn.

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The Nickel Boys, written by Colson Whitehead, is a work of historical fiction that explores the lingering effects of slavery. Elwood Curtis, a black teenager growing up in 1960s Florida, is wrongfully condemned to Nickel Academy, a juvenile reformatory, and finds himself confined to a nightmarish chamber of horrors. The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a reform school that was ultimately subject to an investigation and shut down, served as the inspiration for Nickel Academy. Throughout the novel, readers are guided through the inner workings of an institution that should have acted as a rehabilitation for troubled adolescents but instead was a site of egregious injustice. By basing The Nickel Boys on a real historical event, Whitehead effectively

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The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead is a powerful novel that provides a variety of viewpoints on how society perceives their day-to-day existence. A character in the book must maintain a secret to be safe and have a better life, but the secret also changes the plot's core and reveals the novel's deeper significance. Turner didn't try to change who Elwood was; instead, he wanted to reclaim it and make it his own so that he might live a better life and remember his great friend. But, this has an impact on the story since it alters Elwood's personality. Elwood, the major character, is a unique person who strives to achieve a lot.

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