\n
<\/p>\n
\nI 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.<\/p>\n
\u2014James M. Nabrit Jr. (Howard University President 1960)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
A Brief History of Howard University Students\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
As a Historically Black institution,\u00a0Howard University\u00a0has a past of a strong resistance against the traditionally white American school system.\u00a0Alvin J. Schexnider\u00a0writes, \u201cFounded during a period of hostile, entrenched and legally enforced segregation, these extraordinary institutions [HBCUs] have exceeded expectations in unforeseen ways.\u201d The university has fought for its right to exist and continues to provide higher education to a primarily African American student body.<\/p>\n
Discourse between the administration and the students has played an\u00a0essential role in the university\u2019s history (Coombs).\u00a0Some students view Howard as \u201can institution long perceived as autocratic and indifferent\u201d (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\u00a01968 yearbook, under the section \u201cStudent life is\u2026\u201d, protest is one of the descriptive words chosen along with \u201cspeaking up\u201d and \u201cspeaking out\u201d (Howard University).<\/p>\n
While the reader is not aware of how the Howard-affiliated characters in the novel feel about the protests of their peers at Howard\u2014perhaps they joined the protests at every opportunity, or perhaps they thought the students were supporting the wrong side\u2014this 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.<\/p>\n
As James M. Nabrit Jr. states in the epigraph to this page, students remain a part of the Howard University family even after graduation.\u00a0 While the Howard family and the students\u2019 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n
The Characters and Their Shifting Familial Dynamics<\/strong><\/p>\n
In \u201cGospel,\u201d Anita Hughes is \u201ctwenty-five, in the second year of studying for a biology doctorate\u201d (Jones 189). While not explicitly stated, by the previous quote\u2019s proximity to the mention of Anita\u2019s partner\u2019s school\u2014Howard University Hospital\u2014the 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:<\/p>\n
[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)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This short passage also reveals Anita\u2019s strong Christian faith. Perhaps because of her father\u2019s 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\u2014in direct contrast to the traditional attitudes of their parents. Some families were accepting, and others\u2014like Anita\u2019s\u2014cut off ties completely after being unable to reconcile these differences.<\/p>\n
Anita\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Anita\u2019s partner, John, is\u00a0\u201ca gentle country man who was in his last year of medical residency at Howard University Hospital\u201d (Jones 189). The reader does not find out much information about John\u2014including his race or family background.\u00a0Howard University Hospital<\/a>\u00a0is 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.<\/p>\n
In the story \u201cMarie,\u201d we see the opposite kind of movement: a student moves from the university environment into another character\u2019s 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\u2019s consciousness rather than George\u2019s; the story reveals little of George\u2019s history except for the information gathered in his first interaction with Marie, in which he says, \u201cBut I was born right here in D.C. Born, bred, and buttered, my mother used to say\u201d (Jones 237). The past tense of the verb \u201cused\u201d 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\u2019s life that may parallel those of Marie\u2019s.<\/p>\n
In many ways, George is the foil to Caesar\u2019s character (from \u201cYoung Lions\u201d) in Marie\u2019s 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\u2019s attendance to university. Interestingly, in spite of Caesar\u2019s threat of violence, it seems that Marie is more confused and shaken up by George\u2019s interlude in her life. While Caesar\u2019s 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\u2014one full of voice-recording technology\u2014that she is not sure how to process.<\/p>\n
The folklore course propelled George into Marie\u2019s life. His initial desperation (which can be seen through his fifteen minutes of pleading) and his statement of \u201cI\u2019m talking to everyone in the building who will let me\u201d (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\u2014home to a community and to its people that he has become distant from.<\/p>\n
In title story of Lost in the City<\/em>, Lydia Walsh\u2019s story provides another window on the impact of college education on family life, although Lydia\u2019s university and law school remain unnamed. Her mantra \u201cMy name is Lydia and I come from Washington\u201d is significant for its deliberate use of the term \u201cWashington\u201d rather than \u201cD.C.\u201d In a 2017\u00a0Youtube video<\/a>, Kokoyi\u2014a musician, producer, and educator, defines this difference: \u201cthe 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.\u201d While this is not a strict guideline within Lost in the City,<\/em> the other characters often <\/em>refer to Washington in relation to senators or politics.<\/p>\n
In \u201cYoung Lions\u201d, the city is referred to as \u201cD.C.\u201d once and \u201cWashington\u201d once. To contextualize the former, Jones writes, \u201cA few miles from the store, back in D.C., Caesar was still laughing\u201d (58). In the latter case, Caesar explains that \u201chis mother and father would bring everyone down to see the Washington they put on postcards and in the pages of expensive coffee-table books\u201d (Jones 66). These two quotations refer to the same city, but the connotations are different.<\/p>\n
Lydia\u2019s use of \u201cWashington\u201d therefore amplifies her distance from her childhood community. She used this phrasing as a child\u2014perhaps as a foreshadowing of her eventual departure from the neighborhood. She reflects:<\/p>\n
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).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
By the time her mother dies, the distance\u2014the intergenerational divide\u2014between her and Lydia has grown too large and too imposing for Lydia to navigate. Throughout the stories of Lost in the City<\/em>, higher education functions as one of the primary means of creating that kind of distance within families.<\/p>\n
Sources:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
Coombs, Orde. \u201cThe Necessity of Excellence: Howard University.\u201d\u00a0Change<\/em>, vol. 6, no. 2, 1974, pp. 36\u201341.\u00a0JSTOR<\/em>, JSTOR, www.jstor.org\/stable\/40161996.<\/p>\n
Howard University, \u201cThe Bison: 1968\u201d (1968).\u00a0Howard University Yearbooks<\/em>. 137.\u00a0http:\/\/dh.howard.edu\/bison_yearbooks\/137<\/p>\n
McDowell, Sophia F., et al. \u201cHoward University\u2019s Student Protest Movement.\u201d\u00a0The Public Opinion Quarterly<\/em>, vol. 34, no. 3, 1970, pp. 383\u2013388.\u00a0JSTOR<\/em>, JSTOR, www.jstor.org\/stable\/2747967.<\/p>\n
Schexnider, Alvin. \u201cGovernance and the Future of Black Colleges.\u201d\u00a0Inside Higher Ed,\u00a0<\/em>December 20, 2017,\u00a0https:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/views\/ 2017\/12\/20\/struggling-hbcus-must-consider-new-options-survival-opinion, accessed March 14, 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy Mumbo Sauce Is the Key to D.C.\u2019s Subculture | Food Grails.\u201d\u00a0YouTube,<\/em>\u00a0uploaded by First We Feast, 7 July 2017, www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WBlpjSEtELs.<\/p>\n
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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… <\/p>\n