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Chapters Three & Four

Summary: Chapter Three: Past Is Prologue

At the end of the summer of 1943, Dorothy returns to Farmville to teach. She tutors struggling students after school and also directs the choir. Then a letter from Langley arrives, offering her a position through the end of the war. She accepts and leaves for Langley in November. She will be living too far away from her family to come home on weekends. Her husband, Howard, is a bellman at luxury hotels. He is also often away from Farmville, because he travels to where the seasonal work is: Florida in the winter, Vermont and New York in the summer. Grandparents, and dozens of aunts and uncles, look after the children when Howard and Dorothy cannot.

The previous year, Howard’s work took him to the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. There, the Vaughans became friends with the family of Joshua Coleman, an older man who shared bellman duties with Howard at the Greenbrier front desk. Joshua’s youngest daughter, Katherine, was a decade younger than Dorothy, but her early life followed a similar path: Katherine was smart enough to skip grades in school, she was very good at math, and she eventually passed up a chance at a graduate degree in order to raise a family. She would eventually follow Dorothy to Langley.

Summary: Chapter Four: The Double V

The harbor and surrounding land known as Hampton Roads includes the town of Hampton, the nearby city of Newport News, and several other cities and towns. At the time of Dorothy’s arrival, the area has been transformed. It was once forests and farmland. Now it is a major center of war-related industry. Federally funded housing developments are built, using prefabricated homes, for some of the rapidly growing civilian population. A Newport News development called Newsome Park is for Black men and women. Dorothy rents a room there from a Black couple in their sixties, who own a grocery store and have a large enough home to take in boarders.

Crowded living conditions lead to friction between Black citizens and white citizens sharing public spaces and public transportation. Hampton Roads has mostly avoided major outbreaks of violence, but Black Americans across the country are bitter. They were promised equality after the Civil War, and Woodrow Wilson repeated the promise during World War I. Yet Black men and women continue to experience what W.E.B. Du Bois called “double consciousness.” They are expected to join in the fight against the racist Nazi regime in Europe, but they are expected to endure racism at home without resisting. Black Americans want to know what they are fighting for. They have answered their country’s call after Pearl Harbor, but they continue to hope and demand that their service will be justly rewarded. A letter to the Pittsburgh Courier, a newspaper for Black readers, urges Black Americans to adopt the double V for a double victory: victory over enemies both abroad and at home.

Analysis: Chapters Three & Four

Dorothy’s willingness to sacrifice time with her children for her career highlights her belief that professional success is a crucial component of creating a better future for them. Just as the parents of her students sacrifice financial gain in the present because they have faith that education will provide their children with a better life, Dorothy tutors them after school because she believes the same thing. Her decision to pursue the job at Langley is a difficult one because it is the first time that she will be away from her children, but she does so nonetheless as she believes that they too will benefit from her success.

The ambitious goals that Howard and Dorothy set for themselves keep them physically and emotionally apart, but the fact that the two are able to endure the stress it places on their relationship illustrates their respect for one another’s ambitions. They are both focused and determined to actualize their goals, and certain that achieving those goals will secure a better life for their family. Their strength and determination foreshadow that they will adapt to this new chapter in their life because they place equal value on the importance of their own self-worth and the well-being of the family they have built together.

Shetterly’s use of the past as prologue highlights the importance of family and community. When the Vaughan’s chance friendship with Joshua Coleman eventually leads Katherine to follow Dorothy to Langley, it illustrates how necessary social connections can be for professional advancement. Langley offers Katherine a chance to move beyond the limited choices available to Black women at the time, and having another Black female friend working at such an aspirational place provides her with an opportunity that many of her peers cannot access. Dorothy’s ability to work at Langley is due in large part to the care that her extended family provides for her children in her absence, and their willingness to provide this care illustrates the strength of their familial bond.

The physical transformation of the area surrounding the town of Hampton runs parallel to the path that many African Americans took after slavery ended. Just as Black men advance beyond their historic roles as agricultural workers in order to serve in the military, women like Dorothy may advance beyond doing domestic labor as long as their work serves the war effort. Even in this advanced, industry-focused community, the Black people who support it must live in segregated housing. It is clear from the hasty way in which city planners construct these new housing developments that they do not expect Black citizens to remain in the community once their work is no longer vital to military success. 

The introduction of the double V foreshadows the personal victories that the book’s protagonists will achieve as well as the societal changes that will come as a result of the Civil Rights Movement. The journey that Black Americans take from roles in agriculture to jobs in industry and back again contributes to the internal conflict, or "double consciousness," that they endure. The bitterness resulting from the racial divisions and double consciousness that are a part of daily life will eventually lead Black men and women to foment the Civil Rights Movement. Just as Dorothy and her peers will fight for better conditions at Langley, Black people across America will fight for a more just society.

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