Part 3, The Shadow and the Act, Section 3 Summary and Analysis

The two entries in this section chronicle life in Harlem, a borough in New York with a primarily Negro population.

"The Way it Is" (published 1942). This essay, written in a form similar to a short story, narrates a journey the author makes to visit a Mrs. Jackson to hear how she's surviving the war (the story, it seems, was written in the early stages of World War II). After making small talk about her children, and after satisfying herself that the author isn't a government representative, she speaks at length of the hardships suffered by her, by other Negroes living in Harlem, and by Negroes in general. She speaks of how her son is bullied and beaten by the white soldiers with whom he's training, and of how her...