I have faith [. . .] that you will be bold and that you will enjoy your work and that after you leave Howard University you will be able to look back on your experiences here with pleasure. Wherever you go, I pray that each of you will always regard yourself as a member of the Howard University family.
—James M. Nabrit Jr. (Howard University President 1960)
A Brief History of Howard University Students
As a Historically Black institution, Howard University has a past of a strong resistance against the traditionally white American school system. Alvin J. Schexnider writes, “Founded during a period of hostile, entrenched and legally enforced segregation, these extraordinary institutions [HBCUs] have exceeded expectations in unforeseen ways.” The university has fought for its right to exist and continues to provide higher education to a primarily African American student body.
Discourse between the administration and the students has played an essential role in the university’s history (Coombs). Some students view Howard as “an institution long perceived as autocratic and indifferent” (McDowell). However, students have refused to treat their time at the university passively. Howard is known for its role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1968 yearbook, under the section “Student life is…”, protest is one of the descriptive words chosen along with “speaking up” and “speaking out” (Howard University).
While the reader is not aware of how the Howard-affiliated characters in the novel feel about the protests of their peers at Howard—perhaps they joined the protests at every opportunity, or perhaps they thought the students were supporting the wrong side—this is the environment where they are receiving their education. The gap between students and the older generation could be widened simply by exposing the former to different realms of thought and critical discussion of complicated topics that traditionally take place on university campuses.
As James M. Nabrit Jr. states in the epigraph to this page, students remain a part of the Howard University family even after graduation. While the Howard family and the students’ familial ties of their youth are not mutually exclusive, having two families can create conflict: in some cases, education changes a student and realigns their values in such a way that familial dynamics are shifted and stretched by the collision and friction of these new attitudes with the deep-seated traditional values of their elders. We see this kind of collision enacted in Lost in the City.
The Characters and Their Shifting Familial Dynamics
In “Gospel,” Anita Hughes is “twenty-five, in the second year of studying for a biology doctorate” (Jones 189). While not explicitly stated, by the previous quote’s proximity to the mention of Anita’s partner’s school—Howard University Hospital—the reader can infer that she is a student at Howard University. Her relationship with her father has deteriorated through the years as indicated with the following quotation:
[Jesus] told her that her voice pleased him. He had said no more than that, but she had taken his words to mean that he forgave her for living with John without marriage. And each time she saw her father, who would not forgive her, she wanted to tell him what Jesus had done and said. But she could not create the words. Perhaps the words were in the music, but it did no good, because her father did not come anymore to hear her sing. (196)
This short passage also reveals Anita’s strong Christian faith. Perhaps because of her father’s Christian beliefs or because of his cultural values, he views living together without marriage as a sin. Jones may have been presenting a microcosmic view of the new attitudes the youth had in the 1960s and 1970s—in direct contrast to the traditional attitudes of their parents. Some families were accepting, and others—like Anita’s—cut off ties completely after being unable to reconcile these differences.
Anita’s attendance at Howard University may have shaped her different approaches to life. Being in this environment could be one of the reasons she has these different values than the ones she grew up with. Her view and understanding of Christianity has shifted, where living with a man outside of marriage is not a sin worthy of condemnation. Certainly, her choice of college is not the only possible cause of this shift, but contextually it is the most prominent of the details that the reader has to draw conclusions from.
Anita’s partner, John, is “a gentle country man who was in his last year of medical residency at Howard University Hospital” (Jones 189). The reader does not find out much information about John—including his race or family background. Howard University Hospital is located on the campus of Howard University, so like Anita, he may experience surrounding environment at residency completely different than that of his country home life.
In the story “Marie,” we see the opposite kind of movement: a student moves from the university environment into another character’s home and family culture. When George Carter, another Howard student, interviews Marie for his folklore course, Jones presents their encounter as revelatory and upsetting for Marie. The reader follows Marie’s consciousness rather than George’s; the story reveals little of George’s history except for the information gathered in his first interaction with Marie, in which he says, “But I was born right here in D.C. Born, bred, and buttered, my mother used to say” (Jones 237). The past tense of the verb “used” suggests that his mother has passed away, or at least that their relationship has otherwise changed; the phrasing hints at a kind of loss in George’s life that may parallel those of Marie’s.
In many ways, George is the foil to Caesar’s character (from “Young Lions”) in Marie’s life. Both are young men with from D.C. whose mothers have or may have died. From the few details the reader is given, the only concrete difference is George’s attendance to university. Interestingly, in spite of Caesar’s threat of violence, it seems that Marie is more confused and shaken up by George’s interlude in her life. While Caesar’s interaction still scared her, she knew how to handle him and make sense of what happened in her mind. George presents this entirely different world—one full of voice-recording technology—that she is not sure how to process.
The folklore course propelled George into Marie’s life. His initial desperation (which can be seen through his fifteen minutes of pleading) and his statement of “I’m talking to everyone in the building who will let me” (Jones 237), indicates that he does not have enough people to interview, which, in turn, implies that he does not talk to the people in his own neighborhood. Perhaps this interview process with Marie is a coming home process for George—home to a community and to its people that he has become distant from.
In title story of Lost in the City, Lydia Walsh’s story provides another window on the impact of college education on family life, although Lydia’s university and law school remain unnamed. Her mantra “My name is Lydia and I come from Washington” is significant for its deliberate use of the term “Washington” rather than “D.C.” In a 2017 Youtube video, Kokoyi—a musician, producer, and educator, defines this difference: “the center of the power structure, the place where all these old white men puppeteer my life [. . . .] People from here will refer to that as Washington. So, those are the Washingtonians. D.C. is the culture of the city.” While this is not a strict guideline within Lost in the City, the other characters often refer to Washington in relation to senators or politics.
In “Young Lions”, the city is referred to as “D.C.” once and “Washington” once. To contextualize the former, Jones writes, “A few miles from the store, back in D.C., Caesar was still laughing” (58). In the latter case, Caesar explains that “his mother and father would bring everyone down to see the Washington they put on postcards and in the pages of expensive coffee-table books” (Jones 66). These two quotations refer to the same city, but the connotations are different.
Lydia’s use of “Washington” therefore amplifies her distance from her childhood community. She used this phrasing as a child—perhaps as a foreshadowing of her eventual departure from the neighborhood. She reflects:
In one of the museums white men had allowed her father to make a living pushing a broom, and now she was paid in one year more than her parents had earned in both their lifetimes (Jones 148).
By the time her mother dies, the distance—the intergenerational divide—between her and Lydia has grown too large and too imposing for Lydia to navigate. Throughout the stories of Lost in the City, higher education functions as one of the primary means of creating that kind of distance within families.
Sources:
Coombs, Orde. “The Necessity of Excellence: Howard University.” Change, vol. 6, no. 2, 1974, pp. 36–41. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40161996.
Howard University, “The Bison: 1968” (1968). Howard University Yearbooks. 137. http://dh.howard.edu/bison_yearbooks/137
McDowell, Sophia F., et al. “Howard University’s Student Protest Movement.” The Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 3, 1970, pp. 383–388. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2747967.
Schexnider, Alvin. “Governance and the Future of Black Colleges.” Inside Higher Ed, December 20, 2017, https://www.insidehighered.com/views/ 2017/12/20/struggling-hbcus-must-consider-new-options-survival-opinion, accessed March 14, 2018.
“Why Mumbo Sauce Is the Key to D.C.’s Subculture | Food Grails.” YouTube, uploaded by First We Feast, 7 July 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBlpjSEtELs.
