"GRADUATION" BY:MAYA ANGELOU

This story kind of reminds me of One Friday Morning in that they both start off uplifting and everyone is excited then something bad happens and its all about the color of their skin but in the end they find a way to overcome the devastating news and become proud members of the Negro race. It is graduation time for Lafyette County Training School. Everyone in the town makes a big deal about graduation day. At school the graduating class is admired for their completion and is looked up to by the lower classes. The up coming senior get to practice their seniority for the year to follow. The school was not a rich school but the student body was like a huge family. Only a few percent of the graduating class would continue onto college; where they would be trained to be laborers and women would be baby nurses. Before graduation day the girls would fix up their graduation dresses and the guys would get their second hand pants fitted. Everyone attended the graduation ceremony; some white folks went, the lower classmates, family and friends. Marguerite Johnson, one of the graduating seniors, is the narrator of the story and she goes on and talks about her day and the preparation for the graduation ceremony. She was one of the top students at the school and would be the first called during graduation. A quest named Mr. Edward Donleavy came to give a commencement address. During his speech he starts talking about how will whites are the ones going to have a chance to be somebody; someone that will make a difference. This made many of the graduating students and viewers very uncomfortable and upset. Marquerite did not understand why the black people had to first start out doing labor work before they could even be able to do something they really wanted to do. She felt that all her hard work and accomplishments were for nothing. Her graduation was ruined by the words of Mr. Donleavy. She goes on about how she wishes that everyone was killed or dead; the words that she was hearing from the stage really stuck in her gut and she became very bitter about the world. She states that "it was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quielty and listen to charges brought against my color and no chance of defence." After Donleavy left the choir, the minister's daughter, and Henry, with his "To Be or Not To Be" speech, tried to get the graduates feeling happy and exctied again but non of it worked. All of a sudden During Henry's speech he stops and turns his back to the audience and starts singing. The encouring words of that song caused everyone to join in in singing; everyone knew the words to that song. The meaning of teh words never quite ment anything to Marquerite until then. She then became unashamed of her race and was now "on top again".