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Willie

Summary: Willie

After church choir, Willie walks around Harlem with her son, Carson, who has been filled with anger and hatred. Willie recalls her past. Willie used to sing at her father H’s union meetings, which was how she met Robert, the lightest-skinned Black boy Willie had ever seen. Willie and Robert dated and then married and had Carson. After both of Willie’s parents died, Willie and Robert moved to New York, staying with Joecy’s son Joe, who lived in Harlem. While they looked for work together, people assumed Robert was white, but he could not get a job if he was seen with Willie. They began looking for jobs separately. Willie found work as a housekeeper during the day and as a cleaner at a jazz club, the Jazzing, at night, hoping it would lead to singing gigs. Robert found a job that paid well, though he did not share the details with Willie.

One night, Willie went into the men’s room at the Jazzing to clean up and almost did not recognize Robert standing at the sink. Two white men with Robert walked in and suspected something was happening between Willie and Robert. One of the men told Robert to kiss and touch Willie while he touched himself. After the incident, both men told Robert not to come to work the next day. Robert told Willie he would leave that night. Willie eventually started going to church, though she stopped after she met a poet named Eli. Eli often called Carson “sonny” like Robert did, though Willie would snap at him to stop. Eli began disappearing for days at a time after Willie gave birth to their daughter, Josephine. Willie joined the church choir but would move her lips silently instead of singing.

On their walk, Willie and Carson reach the limits of Harlem, where she knows they should turn around, but they keep going. As they are surrounded by more white people, Willie sees Robert tying the shoe of a little boy holding a white woman’s hand. After Robert stands and kisses the woman, he and Willie lock eyes. They smile at each other, and Willie realizes she has forgiven him. That Sunday during church, Willie thinks of H coming home from the mines, happy to have his wife and daughters waiting for him. Willie looks out to see Carson and Josephine and finally begins singing again.

Analysis: Willie

Willie is the first of Esi’s descendants to be born into a happy, free childhood, giving her and Robert the confidence to strive for more by moving to Harlem. This move is made possible by their strong community ties to Pratt City as they are able to stay with Joe. However, the relative bubble that is Pratt City makes them oblivious to and unprepared for the struggles they will face. Because Black and white people lived harmoniously in Pratt City, it did not occur to either Willie or Robert that they would face problems in presenting as an interracial couple, even though they are not. While Robert is able to take advantage of the benefits that come with passing as white, such as more employment opportunities, this also distances him from his heritage, his culture, and, ultimately, his wife.

Willie’s inability to recognize Robert at the Jazzing at first shows how living among white culture has turned him into a different person. When Willie sees Robert on the street, now fully immersed in life as a white man, her forgiveness is likely an acknowledgment of the fact that she was not the only one who suffered in their relationship. Though Robert has a higher economic and social standing, he can never be authentically himself ever again. By distancing himself from his heritage and background, he is deprived of his true identity, which he can never share with his new family.

Though Willie was born into a better life than her ancestors, her trajectory shows just how hard it is for a Black person, especially a Black woman, to elevate herself. Though Willie was known for her singing voice in Pratt City, she is not able to rise any higher than a cleaning woman at a jazz club in Harlem. After the white men force Robert to violate her in the bathroom at the Jazzing, Willie finds she has lost her voice and her power completely. This is evident in how she allows Eli to take advantage of her. However, Willie finds her power after she and Carson walk to the outer limits of Harlem. Seeing Robert in his new life, Willie seems to be grateful that she has her own life and her own children without having to pretend to be someone she is not. When Willie sings in the church choir, she reclaims some of the strength she lost and that she takes pride in the heritage and culture that Robert abandoned.

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