The Vanishment of the Color Line

The story of America is one of bondage. In a country that championed freedom and liberty, they harbored one dark regret: slavery. In the years after this horrific trade becomes illegal, segregation and discrimination linger. Black John Jones and White John Henderson are juxtaposed in Altamaha, Georgia during this time, representing the two separate worlds in which they are forced to live in Dubois’ Souls of Black Folk. Both Johns live parallel lives, representing everyday white and black folk. They are, it could be argued, one and the same, separated by just one thing: the Color Line. Invisible as it was, it struck a distinct duality between black and white, dominance and subservience, truth and lie. The Color Line does not merely discuss the separation of black and white people in 20th century America—it is the separation of America itself. At its core, the coming of John represents the disappearance of the color line, and the marriage of black and white into one single entity.

At the beginning of the tale, both Johns head off to college, but for different reasons. Black John’s community pins “all hopes on this one boy, that things are going to change” (142). In a community where proper education is repressed and hope remains intangible, John going to college was something they could cling to. Underneath their pride and desires, however, they fear college will spoil him, - ruin him” (142). A world outside of Altamaha is terra incognita, and the black people of this town don’t want Jones to become jaded. In contrast, white John Henderson is going to college as the rule, not the exception. Coming from a long line of college graduates in his family, he believes going will “make a man of him” (143). They don’t know each other yet, and “neither world thought the other world’s thought, save with a vague unrest” (143). They are completely separate spheres. As black John goes through college, he quickly realizes how unprepared he is. A “long, straggling follow,” he was “never able to work consecutively at anything” (142). He was kicked out of school soon after, and “the serious look that crept over his boyish face that afternoon never left it again” (144). He was terrified of coming home to a disappointed community, and soon, his return became legend. Going to college, and failing, changed black John. No longer did he accept knowing only the small world he grew up in; he wanted to understand it all. This was an ambitious undertaking, and slow going at first, but John was determined in a way white John would never have to be. The smile left his face because he “noticed now the oppression that had not seemed oppression before” (144). He realized just how much injustice there was, how hard he and his people would have to fight to find equality.

When black John returns home, his family finds him unrecognizable, but John doesn’t quite recognize them either. An “overwhelming sense of the sordidness and narrowness of it all seized him,” handing him a burden that wasn’t there before. He feels that the onus is on him to spread the word, to teach his community that they must reach higher, to “charity and popular education” (148). His priests and parents don’t understand yet, but black John seems to inspire something in his sister. When she sees him for the first time in years, she realizes the shift in him, saying, “I wish I was unhappy, -and -and… I think I am, a little, John” (144). She’s unhappy because she sees what John sees, too. Beneath this unhappiness, there is hope. John opened a Negro school and was able to teach these new ideas. It was around this time that white John returned home, “tall, gay, and headstrong” (150). White John wishes to reach higher, as well—he “did not veil his contempt for the little town, and plainly had his heart set on New York” (150). Both white and black John have similar sentiments upon their return home. They both saw a glimmer of something bigger than their towns, and they want to explore it. However, there is a major difference in the structure of this desire: Black John went to college in order to change the status quo; white John went to maintain it. Their larger goals mean something very different in the worlds they live in. White John wants something bigger because he believes he deserves it, believes he is better than his town. Black John wants something bigger because he believes his people deserve it. The perspective of white John is echoed in the white part of town. His father resents that black John has opened a school and is educating his community. Judge Henderson, like his son, believes himself to be superior: “When they want to reverse nature, and rule white men, and marry white women, and sit in my parlor, then, by God! We’ll hold them under if we have to lynch every N—— in the land” (150). Without hesitation, he shuts down black John’s school shortly after.

The perceived superiority of white people manifests in white John’s attempted rape of black John’s sister. Black John sees “his dark sister struggling in the arms of a tall and fair-haired man,” and without thinking, he kills white John (152). In that moment, he knows his life has ended, too; the townspeople are already searching for him. The end of this story seems wildly violent and hopeless- like everything ended in the same way it began. But the one thing that separated black and white John –the Color Line– has vanished as they are married in death. Now, they are one and the same. Now, they are equal. The fate of black John is tragic, but as “the world whistle[s] in his ears,” a flicker of something, meek and frail as it may be, remains: hope.