Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered

185/260money. Ah don’t go in no nigger store tuh buy nothin’ neither. Coloredfolks don’t know nothin’ ’bout no business. Deliver me!”Mrs. Turner was almost screaming in fanatical earnestness by now.Janie was dumb and bewildered before and she clucked sympatheticallyand wished she knew what to say. It was so evident that Mrs.Turner took black folk as a personal affront to herself.“Look at me! Ah ain’t got no flat nose and liver lips. Ah’m uh featuredwoman. Ah got white folks’ features in mah face. Still and all Ahgot tuh be lumped in wid all de rest. It ain’t fair. Even if dey don’t takeus in wid de whites, dey oughta make us uh class tuh ourselves.”“It don’t worry me atall, but Ah reckon Ah ain’t got no real head furthinkin’.”“You oughta meet mah brother. He’s real smart. Got dead straighthair. Dey made him uh delegate tuh de Sunday School Convention andhe read uh paper on Booker T. Washington and tore him tuh pieces!”“Booker T.? He wuz a great big man, wusn’t he?”“ ’Sposed tuh be. All he ever done was cut de monkey for whitefolks. So dey pomped him up. But you know whut de ole folks say ‘dehigher de monkey climbs de mo’ he show his behind’ so dat’s de way itwuz wid Booker T. Mah brother hit ’im every time dey give ’im chancetuh speak.”“Ah was raised on de notion dat he wuz uh great big man,” was allthat Janie knew to say.“He didn’t do nothin’ but hold us back—talkin’ ’bout work when derace ain’t never done nothin’ else. He wuz uh enemy tuh us, dat’swhut. He wuz uh white folks’ nigger.”