The Battle Royal Theme

While in this course we had to read a lot of poems and stories, and I feel that they all had a hidden message in everyone of them. One short story that stood out to me was the historical story of the Battle Royal. This story brought light to something that I had never known about, and if it wasn’t for taking this class I would still have no idea about. The story about the Battle Royal is about a high school graduate that gets thrown into a ring with other African American high schoolers and are to fight for the rich white men. This story tells about a boy who speaks about his grandparents who had freed slavery after the civil war, after the civil war there were still problems that the narrator still had to over come just as his grandfather did. The narrator had to over come segregation with the superior white men of his time. At the time of his grandfathers death he opens up about what had happened and how he had lived a bitter life and wants to make sure his grandson does not live the same life. ( insert quote from battle royal)
In the speech the narrator talks about the humiliation of black americans and how he wanted to bring this attention to other people. In the passage his speech was so good that the school set up a meeting in the town with the leading white community of men. The night did not go as planned for the narrator, he arrived with some of his buddies from school and they were told to take part in the battle Royal they were given boxing equipment and were forced to fight. ( instert sentence about the nake white girl with the flag painted on her stomach), the boys were forced to look at her and if they did not they were threatened it the did not look because it would be