Segregation In Anthony Walton's 'A Sort Of Chorus'

Mississippi is a scar where one of the most ugly forms of segregation, racism, and marginalization occurred. Whites enforced white supremacy and dehumanized black lives by savagely beaten them both physically and psychologically. On the other hand, Mississippi is a home for thousands of people today, both black and white. In his novel “Mississippi”, Anthony Walton analyzes the paradox of the state’s ugly past and the resulting landscape. To accomplish this tremendous task, Walton incorporates stories from the black and white perspective including his family, civil rights workers, authors, and strangers. Unlike the rest of the novel, “A Sort of Chorus” is not written by Walton in the conventional sense that he is present in the story. Although
Walton writes the formal laws on the left half of the page and the photos on the right to juxtapose both ethos and pathos. Walton structurally toys with the mind of the reader giving way to the government's perspective of segregation along with the common Black perspective, absent of his personal belief. The combination of both the laws and photos reveals that despite legal progression of race relations between blacks and whites, the African American faced numerous hardships resulting from systematic racism. Walton includes Amendment XIII as a means of progress for race relations, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States” (178). Here, Walton reveals the progress for race relations that slavery is prohibited. He purposely includes this amendment right before the next amendment because, although it chronologically fits, a metaphorical latter of race progress is being constructed. Walton uses the first Amendment as a means of introducing the progress of race peace. The fact that slavery is no longer allowed is a tremendous feat, although racism still persists. Next, Walton includes, Amendment XIV, that blacks are citizens of the United States, not only freed men, “All Persons born or naturalized in the United States... are citizens of the United States” (178). The latter has been built up higher. Blacks are given rights of “liberty...property, the equal protection of the laws” (178) which was a thing unheard of 1 year prior. This change from being an enslaved piece of property to a human with rights was a rapid change for both people black and white. People of power in government were white and afraid that the blacks would steal their power. Next, the white supremacist enacted black codes, resulting in new type of infringement on blacks. The previously prosperous African American lost the right to firearms,