Jubilee

Innis Brown and Randall Ware chat with each other like long-lost friends. Vyry, however, feels mixed emotions, not yet knowing what to say to Ware. She is happy, though, that Jim will go to school. In his conversation with Brown, Ware says that Jim is like him—averse to farm work. He’s sure, though, that his quick-witted son will make a good teacher. Brown, on the other hand, has always been told that “education don’t do nothing but make a nigger a fool” (524). Ware notes that this is something that white men tell black people so that they can continue to make fools out of them. Brown notes that this very thing happened when they were on Pippin’s place. Ware notes the importance of education, saying that freedom won’t mean anything if the former Confederates can keep black people ignorant, restrict their movement, and control their labor. He also doesn’t think that white Northerners are any friendlier toward black people.

Vyry tells Ware that he sounds bitter and wonders if he thinks that “every white man hates every [black person]” (526). Ware says that he does, indeed, believe that white men are black people’s natural enemies. Vyry disagrees and refuses to believe that hatred is natural. Ware points to Vyry’s half-white identity, arguing that this makes her partial to white people. This comment infuriates her. Brown is startled by their arguments, but Ware laughs it off, claiming that he and Vyry have always “sparred with each other” (526).

Later, on the porch, Vyry tells Ware that Jim, the former houseboy, told her that Ware was dead. Ware says that he was so ill that he had been believed to be dead. He woke up one morning with a sheet covering him but breathed hard enough to alert the person preparing to cart him off. He tells Vyry about how he made his way back to Georgia. Vyry says that she never really believed Ware was dead. The conversation then turns to politics. Brown says that the heard a man give a speech in which he said that black people should forget about voting and focus on “[tending their] farms and [raising their] families” (529). Ware disagrees. He reiterates that property is useless without education and the right to vote. Ware talks about how he and his friend, Henry Turner, ran for the Georgia State House and won. Vyry is shocked to hear that Ware represented Terrell County, just as Marse John once had. Ware admits that their service didn’t last, given that white people just could stand it. He asserts that white people are using the Ku Klux Klan to keep black people subservient to whites.

Vyry finds it strange that Ware received all that he owns from Randall Wheelwright and Bob Qualls and once distinguished between Northern whites like them and white Southerners. He now condemns all white people. She also notes that it was white people in her town who helped the Browns build their home. Ware wonders what they wanted in exchange. Vyry reluctantly admits that she serves as the town’s midwife. Ware reverts to saying that the “white man’s blood” has made Vyry “docile” (533). He mocks the Duttons and how Salina “reared all the [black people] and white folks around her just as prim and prissy as you please” (535-36). He makes fun of how Vyry still addresses Lillian as “Miss Lillian” and has no sympathy for the young woman’s descent into madness, given that she was “never taught one day in her life to look the truth in the face” (536).

Vyry counters him yet again, refusing to believe that she’ll “beat the white man at his own game with his killing and his hating” (536). She also refuses to teach her children hatred. She concludes by saying that she understands evil well, but she will not harbor any ill will against those who wronged her. She lets slip the time when she was beaten with 75 lashes, which comes as a horrifying shock to both Brown and Ware. Vyry is crying now. Hysterically, she tears off her clothing to show them the scars.

After seeing Vyry’s back, Ware realizes that he could not resume the life that he had with Vyry before she attempted to run away. Brown looks upon his wife with newfound respect, sensing her “wisdom” and “innate dignity” (540). They saw in her “the best true example of the motherhood of her race […] nothing could destroy a people whose sons had come from her loins” (540-51).

Brown tells Ware about how he met Vyry and her children after the war. Ware asks if Vyry has made up her mind. She says that she must stay with Brown because they’ve built a life together. Slavery and the Civil War never gave her and Ware the chance that they deserved. Ware admits that he knew that Vyry was married and only came because Mr. Porter told him about Jim’s lashes. Ware agrees that he must now find another woman to make his wife. Ware, Brown, and Vyry continue to talk until daybreak. Vyry offers that he take a nap before setting off on his journey with Jim, and Ware accepts her offer.