Sonny
Chap Summary
The chapter starts with Sonny, also known as Carson, getting bailed out of jail by his mother, Willie, after getting arrested for protesting against segregation. Sonny works the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, checking on houses in Harlem. Sonny does not think that the problem with America is segregation, but rather “but the fact that you could not, in fact, segregate” (223). Sonny had been trying to get away from white people, but he could not because white people were everywhere, even in Harlem. Sonny wanted to go back to Africa, but he could not because "in practice things didn't work the way they did in theory" (197). Even though Sonny wants to get away from white people, he does not accept segregation because it means that he has to “feel his separateness as inequality” (197).
One time while on the job, Sonny gets a flashback to a time when his mother couldn’t afford rent and their family had to live in an apartment with forty other people. He aslo remembers a time when he got to visit a white family’s apartment that she used to clean. We see that he felt very lost and overwhelmed in that house. Another incident happens when Sonny visits a house for a check, and a boy asks Sonny the question, “You can’t do a single thing, can you?” (198), and that rings in his head for the rest of the year. After that, Sonny asks to get moved from the housing team. He gets arrested in multiple other marches with the question “You can’t do a single thing, can you?” (198) continuing to ring in his head. Sonny ends up quitting his job at the NAACP and moving in with his mother, where a few ladies come looking for him. We later find out that they are the mothers of his children. Sonny starts looking for a job, and his friend Mohammed refers him to a man he knows. Sonny ends up getting a job as a bartender at Jazzmine, which is where he ends up meeting Amani, a singer. Sonny moves out of his mother’s place, where Lucille finds him and asks for money. Lucille is the mother of one of his daughters, she is one of the ladies that comes looking for him when he stays at his mother’s place. When he refuses to give her any, she confronts him about giving money to Angela, who we learn Sonny got pregnant at fourteen. He would have liked to have married Angela, but her family does not allow Sonny to see her at all.
Two days later, Sonny was back at Jazzmine asking about Amani. However, he does not see her until three months later. Sonny taps Amani awake and when she asks him what he wants, he tells her that he wants her, and he had wanted her since the day he saw her sing. Sonny and Amani then walk to a housing project in West Harlem. While they walk, Sonny asks Amani if she is Muslim, but Amani tells him that she “ain’t into all that Nation of Islam and Back to Africa Business” (205). This statement surprises Sonny, as Amani is using an African name, but he puts politics behind him because he realizes the America he grew up in was different than the one Amani did. Once they arrive at the house, Sonny immediately starts noticing that it is a dope house, and Amani’s slow and sleepy movements start to make sense to him; her dilated pupils becoming obvious. Amani takes the needle from one of the girls sitting and plunges it into her arms. Amani then tells Sonny that this person is who she is and asks him if he still wants her, including her dope addiction. Sonny does not tell Amani no, and that causes him to become an addict.
Time passes, and Sonny wakes up to his mother praying for him like she did a few times before. Sonny is now forty-five years old. One day, Amani explains that Willie had come by. She tells him that he should go to his mother’s for Sunday dinner because she may give him money, which Sonny is doubtful about but promises that he will.
Sonny fulfills his promise to Amani and goes to his mother's house for dinner. Before Sonny joins his mother for dinner, he goes to the bathroom to take a small hit to calm himself down. At dinner, Sonny proceeds to eat while Josephine and Willie watch him while he eats. Once Sonny finishes dinner, he wants to excuse himself to go to the bathroom to do more drugs, but then Willie starts to tell Sonny about the past. She tells him about his father, how he changed over the years, and how she fought for Sonny to have a better life. Willie tells Sonny how sad it makes her to see him a junkie after all that she has done, but that she is even sadder to see Sonny abandoning his children like his father did. After that, Willie pulls out a wad of cash, knowing this is why he is here. She gives him the option to take it and go, but Sonny tears up, and the chapter ends with Sonny staying with his mother despite the temptation of the drugs and the money. Like Yaw, he too experiences a homecoming.
Character Analysis
Sonny
Sonny is the son of Wille and Robert, and he is raised in Harlem after his parents leave Pratt City. Throughout his life, he feels abandoned by his father, but he blames his mother for it. This directly impacts the kind of father Sonny becomes, as he is also absent in the lives of his kids. At the beginning of the chapter, Sonny is portrayed as motivated and determined, and he strongly believes in fighting the racist systems in place that affect black people in Harlem. Therefore, he is a part of the NAACP. However, an interview with a mother and her young son shows him just how powerless he is, and how there is not a single thing he can do to make a significant difference. When he realizes this, his sense of disempowerment leads him to quit the NAACP. After this, his life slowly starts to go downhill, and he becomes more frustrated and annoyed. He later also becomes a heroin addict. He starts to drift away from his mother and sister. By the end of the chapter Sonny is portrayed as addicted and unmotivated. However, it can be argued that he is redeemed towards the very end of the chapter. In the last scene of the chapter when Sonny is talking to his mother, she gives Sonny the cash he wants to get more drugs. Although Sonny wants to take the cash and leave, he decides to stay. This can be perceived as him wanting to make changes in his life and become a better person again, perhaps someone of whom his mother could be proud.
Wille
Wille is Sonny’s mother. She has been a single mother to her son Sonny and daughter Josephine after both her husbands abandon her. She is as protective of Sonny as any mother would be and worries for him. Sonny constantly finds himself in unsafe and dangerous situations. For example, at the beginning of the chapter he is in jail, and Wille has to bail him out. Therefore, Wille spends a lot of time worrying for Sonny and hoping he would pull his life together. However, Wille and Sonny do not have a strong relationship. Sonny’s father was not around when he was a kid, and he blames his mother for that. Wille, however, blames Sonny for not being around his own kids. She also feels Sonny has picked up too many traits from his father and sees a lot of Robert (Sonny’s father) in him. Wille is still a very hardworking womanThroughout her life she works very hard to be able to provide for Sonny and Josephine (her daughter). She cares greatly for Sonny and wants what is best for him; however, she also understands there is only so much she can do for Sonny. This is represented by the fact that at the end of the chapter, she gives Sonny advice but also gives him the money he obviously wanted. This suggests that she realizes that she cannot control her son's life, and if he chooses to make bad decisions she is no longer going to stop him.
Angela
She is the mother of Sonny’s child. She got pregnant when she was 14 and Sonny was 15. Angela, along with Lucille and Rhonda, who are also mothers of Sonny’s children, serve as a reminder of Sonny's failure at being a father. He was never present in their lives, and barely provided for his children financially.
Amani
The woman Sonny ends up with. She is a singer who sings at clubs. Sonny and her meet at a club called “Jazzmine”. She lives in a dope house. Their encounter leads to Sonny's heroin addiction.
Josephine
Sonny’s younger sister who has a different father, Eli.
Mohammed
A friend of Sonny’s. He is a part of the Nation of Islam and tries to persuade Sonny to join as well.
Major Themes Symbols
Names
Names are a major theme in the chapter titled “Sonny.” Several characters in the chapter have changed their names. Johnny changed his name to Mohammad, Mary changed her name to Amani, and Carson used his nickname Sonny rather than his actual name. Although all characters had different motivations behind their decisions to change their names, all of them do it to gain autonomy and control over their lives.
Disempowerment
Disempowerment in this chapter takes a different form than it does in previous chapters. In the previous chapters, disempowerment was done by force. Individuals were captured, kidnapped, were tortured. Individuals were enslaved. Enslaved individuals did not have control over their life, were not able to get jobs, and, as a result, were not able to flourish in life. Nevertheless, in the setting of the chapter titled “Sonny” slavery had ended. Thus, individuals were supposed to be free and have control over their life. However, that was not the reality for many individuals due to substance abuse, specifically heroin abuse. Amani is portrayed as a slave to heroine as she can not get a job and yet she cannot get off it.
Education and Segregation
Education and segregation are prevalent in the chapter when Sonny was comparing the schools he was allowed to go to as a kid in comparison to the white kids' schools. According to Sonny, the schools for white kids were better than the schools for black kids, but he was not allowed to attend them. As a result, this limits the quality and amount of education of black people in Harlem can get, limiting their chances of advancing to higher positions and improving their quality of life.
Sonny’s Homecoming
Sonny’s homecoming comes towards the end of his chapter. The reason it is Homecoming, not Homegoing, is that at some point Sonny was in the home, Willie’s home; however, he deviates from it and then returns to it. Sonny’s homecoming took place when he went to Willie’s place to ask for money. He initially did not want to go as he was angry at his mother for letting him grow up without a father and refusing to tell him about his father. He had no option but to go because of his addiction and financial situation. Throughout his stay at Willie's place, Sonny’s only concerns were to take the money and shoot up. Nevertheless, this changed when Willie opened up about his father, Robert. Willie understood his mother’s circumstances and the sacrifices she made to raise him and his sister. He also understood that his anger was resulting from his lack of autonomy over his life, contrary to his father. The realization of his family’s situation and his mother’s sacrifices made his anger disappear and be replaced with understanding. Moreover, Willie answering his questions about his father made the sense of mystery surrounding his father disappear, creating transparency between the mother and the son that pulled them back together. The truth about his father and family made Sonny decide to become clean and break the addiction cycle. Sonny’s homecoming was highlighted by his refusing the money Willie offered and shooting up, and instead, staying with his mother in their home.
Willie’s Broom
Sonny described Willie’s broom as a Cross that she carries around in the streets of Harlem. The Cross was originally used as a torture device by the Romans. The Cross, later on, became associated with Jesus and was used to symbolize the burden that one carries when one carries the cross. Willie is carrying her broom like a cross because her occupation, which is far from her original dream, is her burden to bear for the greater purpose of providing for her family, for her son. She carries the burden to build a life for her family in Harlem.
Key Quotations
How many times could he pick himself up off the dirty floor of a jail cell? How many hours could he spend marching? How many bruises could he collect from the police? How many letters to the mayor, governor, president could he send? How many more days would it take to get something to change? And when it changed, would it change? Would America be any different, or would it be mostly the same? (244)
Marching, representing strong will, standing on your feet, writing letters to people who can make a change are all things that could be noble and headstrong. However, in Homegoing, that is what has him on the ground with old wounds and new wounds. Yet the most painful thought is after all that effort it could leave without a difference.
The practice of segregation meant that he had to feel his separateness as inequality and that was what he could not take. (244)
The difficulty of accepting his fate as a person of color in a place where that is something that represents inequality and separating himself was difficult.
He was mad at her because he didn’t have a father, and she was mad at him because he’d become as absent as his own. (245)
There is a strong sense of irony here. Despite not having a father, he ironically turned out to be an absent father like his own.
Historical Context & Additional Resources
The chapter titled “Sonny” is set in Harlem, New York, during the 1960s. At this time, institutionalized and systemic racism was prevalent, and Black people were at a significant socioeconomic disadvantage. African Americans at this time were still subject to segregation, difficulty finding/keeping a job, and police brutality, all of which are discussed in this chapter and a previous one titled “Wille”. However, throughout the mid 20th century, Harlem became a center for civil activism and revolution, and the African American community in Harlem “instilled in African Americans across the country a new spirit of self-determination and pride, a new social consciousness, and a new commitment to political activism, all of which would provide a foundation for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s” (“The Harlem Renaissance” para. 10). This chapter specifically takes place in midst of the civil rights movement, and mentions other major historical events and organizations such as NAACP, the Nation of Islam, and the 1964 Harlem riots. Most of these events play a direct role in the outcome of the chapter and the development of the characters.
One of the major events that took place in Harlem in the 1960s that is also mentioned in this chapter is the Harlem riots of 1964, that took place in July. The riots began on July 18th and lasted for 6 days. They took place after the shooting and killing of a 15-year-old African American teenager named James Powell. He was shot by an off duty white police officer (Stultz para. 1). According to Stultz, the protests started out peacefully and turned more aggressive and violent as tensions grew, resulting in looting, vandalism, and property damage. On the third to sixth day, protestors gathered outside police stations and threw rocks, bricks, and sticks at the building and at police officers in the way (para 4). The 1964 Harlem riot was the first of many major racial riots that took place across other major American cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia (Stultz para. 1).
The civil rights movement also took place during this period. It was a political movement that aimed to combat and abolish the racial segregation and discrimination in America. The movement took place mainly throughout the 1950s and 1960s. It was a response to the racism that black people experienced despite the abolishment of slavery. According to King, one of the most notable achievements of the civil rights movement was dismantling of the Jim Crow system (4). The Jim Crow laws were laws that were established in the southern states and were used to further marginalize Black people. They encouraged segregation and racial discrimination and contributed substantially to the systemic racism African Americans faced. These laws are further discussed in a previous section titled “Kojo”. Throughout the civil rights movements, many activists and political leaders challenged the Jim Crow laws, until finally, “In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which legally ended the segregation that had been institutionalized by Jim Crow laws” (History.com para. 40). Furthermore, according to Morris, “the civil rights movement is clearly one of the pivotal developments of the 20th century” (517).
Organizations during this time period that are mentioned in the chapter include, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or NAACP and the Nation of Islam (NOI). As mentioned in above sections, at the beginning of the chapter, Sonny is a part of the NAACP. To provide context, the “NAACP, founded by, among others, W.E.B. Du Bois, [who] had been working for black rights since the early 1900’s” (Burson para. 36). Furthermore, according to Carson, the NAACP also became one of America's most enduring civil rights organization (para. 8). Additionally, Nation of Islam is also mentioned in this chapter. The Nation of Islam was founded in 1930 and combined “elements of traditional Islam with Black nationalist ideas. The Nation also promotes racial unity” (Melton 1). Although it was different from other African American organizations at the time, “by the 1960s the Nation had become a force to be reckoned with in African American life” (“The Black Scholar 1).