Town maps registered the street as Mains Avenue, but the only colored doctor in the city had lived and died on that street, and when he moved there in 1896 his patients took to calling the street, which none of them lived in or near, Doctor Street. Later, when other Negroes moved there, and when the postal service became popular means of transferring messages among them, envelopes from Louisiana, Virginia, Alabama, and Georgia began to arrive addressed to people at house numbers on Doctor Street. The post office workers returned these envelopes or passed them on to the Dead Letter Office. Then in 1918, when colored men were being drafted, a few gave their address at the recruitment office as Doctor Street. In that way, the name acquired a quasi-official status. But not for long. Some of the city legislators, whose concern for appropriate names and maintenance of the city’s landmarks was the principal part of their political life, saw to it that “Doctor Street” was never used in any official capacity. And since they knew that only Southside residents kept it up, they had notices posted in the stores, barbershops, and restaurants in that part of the city saying that the avenue running northerly and southerly from Shore Road fronting the lake to the junction of routes 6 and 2 leading to Pennsylvania, and also running parallel to and between Rutherford Avenue and Broadway, had always been and would always be known as Mains Avenue and not Doctor Street.(4)
Morrison establishes a fine line between the two races of African-Americans and Whites. The distinction of the two is shown at the beginning of the story where the narrator sets the scene. Much confusion is put into thought to a street that is called differently to the races. The name originally given is Main Avenue, Doctor Street fits better to the African-Americans; there’s reasoning to why the name seemed “appropriate” to their eyes. However, the Whites are superior and will name the street whatever they want no matter what it’s preferably called by everyone else.
The narrator is introducing the setting of the story and begins to briefly tell the story about Main Avenue. There was always much confusion of the actual name of the street for it seemed as if it was mentally graved to the group of the African-Americans that they have an established name for it and that “a few gave their address at the recruitment office as Doctor Street”. Knowing the fact that many people believe the place is called something else shows the significance of what the name means to them. It’s a part of their culture that they don’t want to be stripped from them so they “[kept] it up”.
Although there’s a majority that the strip of lane should be called Doctor Street, the whites aren’t going to give in and change the name. Theres no doubt that there’s some folks other than the african-americans whom used the name Doctor Street, but because they don’t want to comply into their idea, they’ll leave the name as Main Avenue as a sense of subliminal supremacy. The author demonstrated how the whites, primarily the ones who were in authority of the postal service, “had notices posted in the stores, barbershops, and restaurants ...had always been and would always be known as Mains Avenue and not Doctor Street.”(4) tried to force something into the society.
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