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XIII. Of the Coming of John

Summary

In this chapter, Du Bois talks about a former student, named John Jones. John left the rural Southern town of Altamaha to study at the Wells Institute in Johnstown, with the support of his family and despite the doubts of the town’s whites. After some difficulty, John eventually graduated and attended college. His growing awareness of racism made him slightly sarcastic and bitter. On a trip to New York, he was escorted out of a theater due to his race. 

After college, his homecoming was awkward, for he was no longer the boy the town remembered. John then applied to teach at the local Black school. Judge Henderson hired John on the condition that he would “teach the darkies to be faithful servants and laborers.” Henderson fired John after only a month, because of rumors that John was filling his pupils’ heads with dangerous ideas. That evening, Henderson’s son chased John’s sister, Jennie, into the woods. John was heading home through the woods and came across the young Henderson, who was holding a frantic Jennie. John hit him with a branch and killed him. John went home and said goodbye to his mother, telling her that he was going to go North to be free. He then sat on a stump at the edge of the property and waited to be lynched by Judge Henderson. When the lynch mob appeared, John stood with dignity and listened to the wind.

Analysis 

John Jones is a symbol for all young Black people, and his experiences expose the prevailing attitudes of racism that white people harbor against Black people who are simply trying to get ahead. The negative opinions that the white people in town have about Jones attending college are the result of their racist beliefs that an educated Black person is a threat to white supremacy. Jones’s lukewarm reception upon his return demonstrates how an education can provide scope and space for Black people but can also make them strangers to their own communities. Since an educated Black man was so uncommon, it was difficult for Jones to fit into the expectations of his traditional community. When a lynch mob exacts revenge on Jones for defending his sister against violence, it illustrates that racism is a fact of life for any young Black man, no matter how well-educated or hard-working he may be.

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