Summer: The Way to Highland Park, p. 135 - 176 Summary and Analysis

The book's final section begins with a detailed, evocative description of summer in Brownsville, a time of year the author says was "the passage through ... the great time ... [when] life could slow down..." He describes hot days and humid evenings, unexpected sensuality, children sleeping on fire escapes, and pigeons, soaring and circling in the fading light of the sun. He goes on to write about how summer also meant street meetings. The first he describes are gatherings hosted by Negro Jews to raise awareness of the sufferings of Southern Negroes, efforts met by the disdain of Brownsville's "real" Jews. He then describes the meetings of local Socialist and Communist factions, meetings that sometimes led to surges of the rivalry between the two groups. "Socialism," the author says...