Marcus 

Summary: Marcus

While at a pool party, Marcus thinks of how he does not like water, something his father, Sonny, attributes to the fact that Black people were brought to America on slave ships. Marcus is now in grad school at Stanford and calls his father once a week. Sonny works as a custodian and stays sober by visiting a methadone clinic daily. When Sonny calls Marcus to say that his mother says hello, Marcus thinks about the last time he saw Amani, at his high school graduation, wearing a dress that covered the track marks on her arms. After Marcus hangs up, his friend Diante drags him to a museum where Diante once met a woman he liked, though the two forgot to exchange information.

Marcus is doing research on the system of convict leasing that led to his grandfather H’s premature death. However, he finds it impossible to separate this one topic from all of the other aspects of systemic racism in American history. Marcus thinks back to Sunday dinners with his family, when he could feel the presence of a more extended family in the room with him. One night, Marcus and Diante go to a gallery, where Diante finally reunites the woman from the museum. However, Marcus is interested in her friend, who introduces herself as Marjorie. Marcus and Marjorie begin spending time together, and he feels at home with her. One day, Marjorie points out where her grandmother lived on a map and says she has not been back for fourteen years. Marjorie accompanies Marcus to visit Pratt City for his research, and there they agree to go to Cape Coast together.

When Marcus and Marjorie arrive at Cape Coast, they tour the castle together and look inside the dungeon where the women were kept. At the thought, Marcus feels sick and runs onto the beach, where men are cooking fish over a fire. Marjorie catches up to him, keeping her distance from the fire before running into the ocean. Marcus follows her until the waves are over his head, and he sees the gold glinting off of Marjorie’s black stone necklace. She gives him the necklace, telling him, “Welcome home.”

Analysis: Marcus

Marcus struggles to pinpoint his own heritage and identity out of the many generations of racial oppression across Africa and the United States. He finds himself stuck in his research because he cannot decide where the topic of convict leasing begins or ends. So many other systemic institutions led to it and so many followed that they are fully entangled with each other. Similarly, everyone in the lineage from Esi to Marcus is entangled with the history of the people who came before them and the future of those who came after. Marcus also has seen firsthand the oppression Black people have faced as a direct result of slavery in both of his parents’ drug addictions. Though his father is clean, he remains tied to a strict schedule to avoid relapsing, keeping him from rising to his fullest potential. Meanwhile, Marcus’s mother Amani has barely been in his life due to her continued addiction.

Although Marcus is the most distant relation of Esi, the progress that has been made between the two of their lives and the information available for Marcus to research means he is, in some ways, the closest to her. Unlike the people who came between Esi and Marcus such as Jo, Marcus has an inherent dislike of water. Though he does not know he has a connection to the castle, Marcus also has a visceral reaction to seeing the dungeon where Esi was once imprisoned. Though Esi was not able to pass down her stone pendant or meet any of her descendants, her heritage and memory have not been forgotten.

The bond between Maame and her daughters persists, as is proven when Marjorie and Marcus meet and feel an instant connection. Just as Effia and Esi began life under similar circumstances, Marjorie and Marcus meet under similar circumstances, as grad students. Though one branch of the family had distinct advantages over the other, both faced oppression and struggles by society or by their own communities, and both branches subsisted to find each other again. Marjorie’s gift of the black stone pendant, whose twin was lost by Esi generations ago, shows her recognition of Marcus as family, even if neither of them is aware how closely they truly are linked.