Lauren Song of Solomon close reading

The historical accuracy of Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison is rather good. "Ain't but two toilets downtown they let colored in: Mayflower Restaurant and Sears." This takes place right before the Civil Rights Movement in a time when segregation was still legal and widely practiced. Looking at this quote and knowing that most Restaurants did not allow those of color in and that the Mayflower was the name of the ship on which the Pilgrims first came to New England, it would seem that the use of Mayflower could be symbolic for change and new beginnings and forward thinking.  Or perhaps it simply refers to the hopeful image of a flower in May. "A young Negro boy had been found stomped to death in Sunflower County, Mississippi. There were no questions about who stomped him - his murderers had boasted freely - and there were no questions about the motive. The boy had whistled at some white woman, refused to deny he had slept with others ad was a Northerner visiting the South. His name was Till." This is referring to the murder of Emmett Till a young man of color visiting Mississippi. He was murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman, and for this he was made to carry a 75 pound cotton gin fan to the river, then stripped and beaten nearly to death by the woman's husband and brother before they gouged out his eye, shot him in the head and tied his body to the fan with barbed wire and threw it in the river. Emmett was from the North where people rarely mutilated and murdered others for flirting with someone of another race, he was unprepared for the violence and hate he met with in the South. The mention of this event in the book not only helps to get a better sense of the time period but helps us to understand the viewpoints and concerns of those living there at the time.