Merry-Go-Round Analysis

COLORED CHILD AT CARNIVAL



Where is the Jim Crow section

On this merry-go-round,

Mister, cause I want to ride?

Down South where I come from

White and colored

Can't sit side by side.

Down South on the train

There's a Jim Crow car.

On the bus we're put in the back--

But there ain't no back

To a merry-go-round!

Where's the horse

For a kid that's black?

.: :.

He created this poem because of the effect Jim Crow had on him as a child. When he was 14 his 7th grade teacher moved him, along with all the other black students to the back of the class, he got extremely angry. Supposedly Jim Crow kept whites and blacks apart. So Hughes put cards that read "JIM CROW ROW" on the black kids' desks. He felt like it was the right thing to do; his grandmother had raised him to stand up for freedom. But the teacher became furious, and Hughes was expelled. When parents started protesting, his expulsion was called off and he returned to school. After that segregation in the school was no longer an issue. When he was older he published poetry, fiction, newspaper articles, essays, plays, song lyrics and even a movie script clipping Jim Crow. (Boys Life 1) He believed Jim Crow was to blame for all the segregation and racism he went through. “Colored Child At Carnival” was a piece inspired by Jim Crow.

| Posted on 2008-05-12 | by a guest