112 pages • 3 hours read
Jesmyn WardA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Summary
“The Tradition” by Jericho Brown
Introduction by Jesmyn Ward
“Homegoing, AD” by Kima Jones
“The Weight” by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah
“Lonely in America” by Wendy S. Walters
“Where Do We Go from Here?” by Isabel Wilkerson
“‘The Dear Pledges of Our Love’: A Defense of Phillis Wheatley’s Husband” by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
“White Rage” by Carol Anderson
“Cracking the Code” by Jesmyn Ward
“Queries of Unrest” by Clint Smith
“Blacker Than Thou” by Kevin Young
“Da Art of Storytellin’ (a Prequel)” by Kiese Laymon
“Black and Blue” by Garnette Cadogan
“The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning” by Claudia Rankine
“Know Your Rights!” by Emily Raboteau
“Composite Pops” by Mitchell S. Jackson
“Theories of Time and Space” by Natasha Trethewey
“This Far: Notes on Love and Revolution” by Daniel José Older
“Message to My Daughters” by Edwidge Danticat
Key Figures
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Jackson’s essay begins by asking how boys without fathers spell the word father. In a video, a poet dreamed he spelled that word by spelling the word mother instead and insisted it was a proper substitute for father. Jackson disagrees that mothers can be fathers. He acknowledges changing gender roles and emphasizes that young women need fathers. However, mothers provide irreplaceable support to daughters, while fathers provide irreplaceable support to sons. (In a footnote, Jackson clarifies that he means cis males and females.) Sons need fathers, whether biological ones or various male figures who provide fatherly support.
Jackson himself, whose father did not parent him during his early years, assembles a father from many men in his life. He likens this practice to that of President Barack Obama and, in an extended footnote, details the fragmented fatherhood of Obama and several other presidents. Obama, whose father left him as a child, was parented by his maternal grandfather and a now-infamous figure named Frank Marshall Davis, whose leftist beliefs apparently informed some of Obama’s platform and policies. George Washington lost his father as a child and found a composite in his brother Lawrence, who preceded him in military service and political office.
By Jesmyn Ward