Alice is Jones's girlfriend, a highly educated social worker who has more financial and social advantages than he does. She believes, and urges Jones to believe as well, in the potential for success working within the existing social-political system of segregation, proving to whites that blacks can be successful by doing so on white terms. A key point to note about Alice is that her skin is much paler than Robert's and her features much more Caucasian, so that she can sometimes pass for white. In the socio-racial system of the time, this was considered a great advantage for blacks, in that there was potential for them to avoid the systemic racism that repressed the lives and careers of so many black people.