View a FREE sample

Part I, Twenty-One, Beyond Sandy Hook—Father

• Hughes spends much of his childhood moving from place to place trying to make ends meet.

• The book opens with Hughes throwing all of his books overboard a ship.

• Hughes is 21 and is on his first sea voyage to Africa.

• He sees this trip as a chance to start over and leave his childhood behind.

• Hughes gets a job aboard a ship as a mess boy.

• He likes his roommates and his work on the ship.

• When the ship gets to Africa, Hughes is unhappy to learn he is not considered "black" in Africa.

• Hughes's parents are of mixed heritage and his skin is light brown.

• Hughes was born in 1902 and lived often with his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas.

• His grandmother refuses to do manual labor for whites, and often there is no food in the house to eat.

• Hughes does...

(read more Chapter Abstracts)

This section contains 3,000 words (approx. 10 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample