The Injustice of White Treatment of Blacks in American Socie

An obvious and striking theme of Not without Laugther is the deep injustice involved in how whites treated blacks in American society. In fact, Hughes aims to show that racism was deeply entrenched across the United States and not just in the South.

The racism of Stanton becomes quite clear on numerous occasions. Early in the book when Annjee is working for the thin, white blond woman, Mrs. J. J. Rice, Sandy becomes furious with how condescending Rice was to his mother and how hard she worked her. Jimboy also complained early on that his boss fired him because the union workers he employed refused to work with a black man. Sandy was regularly segregated in school and he and his friends were not allowed into a carnival because they were black. And because whites wouldn't let blacks into...