Editor's Choice
What are some meaningful quotes in Jubilee?
Quick answer:
When they are running from the KKK, Henry McNeil Turner asks Randall Ware if he is a coward. Ware replies that he would rather make a good run than a bad stand. This quote represents the core of what it means to be black in America during this time period and afterward. The chances of surviving an attack by the KKK were not high enough for people like Randall Ware to put their lives on the line for this imagined American freedom. Instead, they had to do everything in their power to live another day and protect themselves. This is why the first thing most contemporary African Americans think when they hear "black lives matter" is not "of course, that's obvious." It's "
One quote I always remember from Jubileeis "Right now I'd rather make a good run than a bad stand." Randall Ware says this in response to being assumed a coward by Henry McNeil Turner. Bishop Turner initially had the opinion that Congress would do the right thing and set forth an investigation into the crimes of the KKK.
Having already been beaten by the KKK and essentially forced to sell his land to a white man, Ware does not have the same confidence in his government that Turner does. He would rather leave politics and have people call him a coward for it than stay and be killed.
A constructed/stereotypical narrative that surrounds the perception of the African American identity is the idea that, born from the terrors of slavery, an African American man or woman can stand anything—that no matter what happens, they can make it through.
This...
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narrative is fundamentally dehumanizing. African American people can't be expected to make it through a mob of white people ambushing and killing them. Additionally, it is this ideology that "a black person will make it through anything you put them through" that pushed so many slave owners to abuse their slaves.
You can't expect a person who has already been through great trauma to be willing to put their life on the line any time the chance comes up. Randall Ware sees that his government has allowed slavery to go on for a long time and has done close to nothing to protect the rights and wellbeing of black people, free or enslaved. So, he makes his own personal choice to stay alive.
Yes, fighting is brave. But protecting yourself is not cowardly.
A memorable line for me in Margaret Walker's novel Jubilee is at the very end of the novel when Vyry has arrived at her new home: "Vyry stood and looked over the red-clay hills of her new home where the shadows of the tall pine trees were following the sun to darkness and to sleep." The imagery in the line creates a tone of warmth which heightens the feelings that the reader already has for Vyry as her journey comes to an end. The reader rejoices with Vyry because Vyry has come out of slavery, the war and all its tribulations, and the ardous trek to find a new home. Vyry is now in a place where she is in charge of her own destiny, and the setting of the sun suggests the end of times past and the coming dawn of a new reality for Vyry and her family.
What are the key quotes in *Jubilee*?
There are many key quotes in the novel Jubilee by Margaret Walker. Perhaps the most moving quotes are made regarding hatred and love.
1. "Keeping hatred inside makes you git mean and evil inside."
2. "We supposen to love everybody like God loves us."
3. "Folks with a loving heart don't never need no doctor."
Given that the text speaks to issues such as family, deliverance, duty, and religion the quotes above show the importance of love and the letting go of hate. In the end, letting go of hate insures one can forgo the physical stress hate places on the heart, "shrinks you up inside...and squeezes your heart tight", and allows one to "don't never need no doctor."