Childhood

Hayden Myrick

Jernigan

AP Literature

February 23, 2011

“Childhood” by Margaret Walker

            Recounting her days as a young African American, Margaret Walker describes a sensory memory that occurred during her childhood. She lived in Alabama during some of the most intense years of racism. In this Petrarchan sonnet, Walker uses the octave to set up the Volta that occurs in the sestet. The first eight lines seem to disregard any racial tension directed at blacks. One may assume that the miners of Caucasian descent, but she does not directly state this. The continual use of red imagery suggests that race should not matter. Whatever color skin lies beneath the red dust does not matter. All races possess the same capabilities to accomplish the same work and tasks. Walker embraces her heritage indirectly by refraining from wishing she could change her skin color. The red covering suggests that all races possess equal chance of enduring ridicule and discrimination. The only true way to avoid racism completely is to cover one’s skin with a false, unnatural color.

            The Volta appears in the second half of the poem. Here Walker moves from collective racism into the racism endured by blacks. The “low cotton country” symbolizes the cotton fields in which countless African Americans spent their days working for menial wages. The workers live in “rotting shacks” and constantly deal with “famine, terror, flood, and plague…” These conditions described seem all too common in early twentieth century America. The bitterness within the blacks still remains. Hatred still remains. The comparison between the black skin and the red dust creates conflict within the reader. Its seems that the miners were free to walk about town, looking unnatural in red clay, but the blacks continue to endure the discrimination that the “red men” do not experience.