Analysis Of Fourth Of July By Audre Lorde

In the short story, “Fourth of July”, Audre Lord transmits the main message of how one should resist and retaliate when afflicted to prejudice. Lorde displays the message of prejudice early in the story when she describes the complications Phyllis had trying to get to Washington D.C. with her high school senior class, just because she is a different skin color as the others. Lorde writes “Phyllis’s high school senior class trip had been to Washington, but the nuns had given her back her deposit in private, explaining to her that the class, all of whom were white, except Phyllis, would be staying in a hotel where Phyllis ‘Would not be happy,’ meaning, Daddy explained to her, also in private, that they did not rent rooms to Negroes. ‘We will

due to her different ethnicity than all the other people at her school. The nuns of her school state that Phyllis would be staying at a hotel where she would “not be happy”, ultimately saying that the hotel they are staying at is against Negroes and will not let her stay. The idea of having Phyllis not being able to stay at a hotel with her fellow classmates is already messed up, but what makes it worse is that the school and the nuns don’t try and fix anything, they won’t fund her for another hotel to stay at, she has no help from her school. The father of Audre’s family, then takes charge, and tells Phyllis if they won’t help her get to Washington D.C., “we will take you to Washington ourselves”, reciprocating the

they face more enmity for being a discriminated race in the 1940’s. Audre wishes to go eat in the dining car of the train they are on, though mother denies that wish because it is supposedly “too much money”. Lorde writes, “I wanted to eat in the dining car because I had read all about them, but my mother reminded me for the umpteenth time that dining car food always cost too much money and besides, you never could tell whose hands had been playing all over that food, nor were those same hands had been just before. My mother never mentioned that black people were not allowed into railroad dining cars headed south in 1947. As usual, whatever my mother did not like and could not change, she ignored. Perhaps it would go away, deprived of her attention”. This quote ultimately is Audre's mother hiding the racism being conveyed to the train. Audre’s mother wants her to be shielded from the prejudice, showing the amount of shame the mother has for this conflict. Though Audre couldn’t retaliate and voice her thoughts back then because she wasn’t informed about the racism occurring, she conclusively gets her revenge, writing, “Black people were not allowed into the railroad dining cars headed south in 1947” which was one of many things that African-American citizens