Terkel #7

         Both Dennis Hart, and Lucy Jefferson's interviews were focussed around their "images" in everyday society. Dennis Hart is a Chicagoland man who works two jobs and has two children. Throughout the interview, he speaks a lot about courage and pride. It seemed as if Dennis was looking for a meaning to life by the way he presented himself to the public. He said that "freedom is the most important thing in your life" (238) But then he says how in today's society, a white man can not express how he truly feels because it makes him a coward. The main points that Mr.Hart makes is to conform into society's beliefs  if you want to survive and be accepted in "Division Street".  Then he went on to talking about the John Birch Society, which he joined because he believed in what they believed in and felt that he could fit in there. Dennis said that even in the John Birch Society, you had to prove yourself and satisfy your peers to be accepted. After living in and experiencing a lot of different atmospheres, Dennis says that everyone, both black and white people have to build an "image" in todays society to be socially accepted.
          Lucy Jefferson is a black woman who lives in the "Robert Brooks" housing projects in Chicago. She spoke a lot about pride too, just as Dennis Hart did. Both of them grew up pretty poor which may explain some of the same similarities they have in their perception of todays society. Lucy worked very hard as an Aid at a hospital for her two children. She explains how society and her peers did not expect much from her at her work because she was negro. And she also stresses how everyone looked at her differently because she was a black woman who read a lot. She was always seen with a book in her hand at work and that made her coworkers question her intelligence and her intentions. Mrs.Jefferson explains that she was "breaking down" the stereotype that black people were given, that "all Negroes are ignorant" by reading so much and educating herself. (247) Then we learn that her son did not have books when he was going to school because the neighborhood and district could not afford books for the students. By experiencing that and seeing her own child not being able to get the education he deserved, she thought that she should break down the typical beliefs of Negroes and make a new "image" for herself. That was the reason that she carried and read these books, to make an accepting image of herself to her white peers. Both interviews are interesting because they are given from two different perspectives, but have many similarities within each other about conforming and proving society's stereotypes to be wrong.