Changing Routes in “An Orange Line Train to Ballston”

By Kenton Rambsy

In Edward P. Jones’s “An Orange Line Train to Ballston,” a man with dreadlocks starts talking with Marvella Watkins’s children on the Metro, and Marvella changes the route her family rides across DC every weekday in hopes of seeing him again.

Since her divorce, Marvella has lived in Southeast with her sister, but her family’s weekdays happen in Northwest. Each morning, she rides from Stadium-Armory to McPherson Square and drops her sons at Thompson School, two blocks from her mother’s apartment at Horizon House, where Avis spends the day. Then she walks to work at C&P Telephone.

The man sits beside Marvella on the train and touches her hand, and she starts carrying her phone numbers in case he asks. Guessing he rides only the orange line, she lets blue trains pass, though both stop at McPherson Square. Her oldest son, Marvin, still learning the Metro, asks why they wait when the blue train is like the orange. Embarrassed and frustrated that the man rarely appears, Marvella lashes out at him, hating a scene “particularly around white people.”

Her search covers a lot of DC. The weekday ride runs about four miles, from Southeast blocks that were about 82 percent Black in 1980 to blocks around the school and her office at 37 and 34 percent. On Saturday she circles back through Southeast looking for him, driving her nephew’s car between 19th Street and Potomac, Kentucky and North Carolina Avenues, where she thinks he must live if he boards at Stadium-Armory. The man turns her weekday commute into a search of the neighborhood where she grew up.

Jones shows a mother who crosses DC every weekday to hold her family together, then changes that route, in hopes of seeing one man again.

In Edward P. Jones’s “An Orange Line Train to Ballston,” orange and blue trains share the track from Marvella’s station at Stadium-Armory to McPherson Square, and either one gets her family to school and work. Once she meets the man with dreadlocks, she lets blue trains go by and waits for an orange one.

Related: 

• Black Short Story Findings

Car Rides in Edward P. Jones’s “The Gospel”

By Kenton Rambsy

In Edward P. Jones’s fiction, the way a character gets around DC decides where the most personal talk happens.

In “Gospel,” Vivian Slater drives her gospel group to two churches on one Sunday, from her home east of the Anacostia River to Diane’s house in Southeast, Claridge Towers downtown, a burned storefront in Shaw and a large church off 14th Street. Only a car lets the group cover that much of DC in one day, and Vivian decides the route.

To bring out conflicts inside the group, Jones keeps four women in one car. On 11th Street, Maude complains that her building has “turned bad” and talks of moving back South. On the way home, Diane asks Vivian to stop at 14th and Fairmont so she can meet a man who is not her husband. Vivian snaps, “I ain’t your gotdamn chauffeur!” When Diane gets out at Claridge Towers instead of riding home, Vivian drives off alone and turns the wrong way at Thomas Circle.

The day covers more than ten miles of driving, through neighborhoods that ranged from 30 to 95 percent Black in 1990, when DC was 66 percent. Vivian’s side of the river was 95 percent, Diane’s blocks near Lincoln Park 30 and Claridge Towers 61, while both churches sat in areas above 85. The car carries women from very different parts of the city into the same mostly Black churches.

Jones uses a Sunday drive across DC to gather women from three neighborhoods into one car, and the miles between stops give their tensions begin to surface.

In Edward P. Jones’s “Gospel,” set around 1990, Vivian Slater drives from her side of the Anacostia River (95 percent Black) to Diane’s blocks near Lincoln Park (30), Claridge Towers (61), a burned storefront in Shaw (89) and 14th Street (86). DC was 66 percent. Her car brings together women from very different parts of the city.

Related: 

• Black Short Story Findings

Marie Navigating DC

By Kenton Rambsy

Edward P. Jones shows how older residents of DC use knowledge of their neighborhoods and relationships with neighbors to keep getting around the city on their own.

In “Marie,” an 86 year old widow makes her own way across DC, from Claridge Towers to a Social Security office a mile away. She plans the trip hours ahead, rising in the dark and laying out money for the bus. She walks ten minutes from 12th and M to the stop at 14th and K and takes an earlier bus, “lest there be trouble.”

After a young man grabs at her coat on 13th Street, Marie carries her knife even to the trash. She has learned where trouble can come from and leaves home ready for it. Marie could make the walk alone, but she lets her friend Wilamena come along to the bus stop, “but no farther.” Their walks show the support neighbors at Claridge Towers give one another.

The trip crosses very different parts of DC, and Marie knows them. In 1980 the area around Claridge Towers was 73 percent Black, her bus stop 37 percent and the office 8 percent. She moves from blocks where neighbors know her to an office where she waits alone for hours.

Following Marie across town, Jones shows that getting around DC takes knowledge of the city and the support of neighbors.

Jones shows how knowing her blocks and a neighbor’s help keep an older woman moving through DC on her own.

In Edward P. Jones’s “Marie,” an 86 year old woman travels about a mile from Claridge Towers to a Social Security office in Northwest DC. In 1980 the census areas around her home, her bus stop and the office were 73, 37 and 8 percent Black. Near home she has neighbors who know her. At the office she waits alone.

Related: 

• Black Short Story Findings

Dialogue in Zora Neale Hurston’s "The Gilded Six Bits"

Jade Harrison

Where characters talk in a story can show how their relationship changes.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s “The Gilded Six Bits” (1933), Joe and Missie May Banks, a married couple, talk to each other most in their kitchen.

Before Joe finds Otis D. Slemmons in their bedroom with Missie May, the couple speaks 931 words in the kitchen. Afterward, they speak only 30 words there, a drop of about 97 percent.

In their early kitchen conversations, Joe and Missie May tease each other and talk about people and places outside their home. Missie May praises Joe: “God took pattern after a pine tree and built you noble.” Joe answers, “Ah know Ah can’t hold no light to Otis D. Slemmons.”

After Joe discovers Slemmons, their kitchen conversations nearly disappear. In the whole story, Missie May’s words drop from 575 to 114, and Joe’s drop from 704 to 275. Hurston does not depict a fight. She shows how the betrayal changes their relationship through how little they talk.

Missie May speaks all 114 of her words to Joe, but Joe speaks only 91 words to her. He speaks 169 words to a white clerk at a candy store in Orlando, and 69 percent of them are about Slemmons. The story ends at their front door, not in the kitchen. Missie May’s last line echoes her first words to Joe: “Joe Banks, Ah hear you chunkin’ money in mah do’way.”

Hurston depicts a marriage in conflict by removing dialogue from the kitchen, where the couple once talked most.

Before the betrayal, Joe and Missie May’s words to each other drops by 97 percent. Across the whole story, Missie May’s words fall 80 percent, from 575 to 114. Joe’s fall 61 percent, from 704 to 275.

Related

• Black Short Story Findings

Black Literature is Important. We Should Be Seeing It More.

Albert Smith

Black students at SIUE want to read and engage with literature that reflects their own experiences and culture.

In a survey, both men and women students overwhelmingly agreed that it was important to read works that reflect Black people, experiences, or cultures. 72.9% of of first-year Black men students and 77.9% of first-year Black women students agreed or strongly agreed when surveyed. Only 1.9% of the men students and 0.5% of the women students disagreed or strongly disagreed that it was important to read works that reflect Black people, experiences, or cultures.

These numbers were striking as there is almost a unanimous opinion that reading Black literature is important. The numbers suggest that what students at SIUE consider important may not be what they are engaging with within the classroom. Black literature despite being identified by Black students as being important, is oftentimes only covered in the African American literature courses.

There may be opportunity in exploring Black literature in spaces outside of AALS courses at SIUE.

Related: 

• Black Readers Findings

Great Expectations, Different Concerns

By Kai Steward

First-year students showed comparable results across the entirety of the survey taken during orientation. The only diverging results were the students’ biggest college-reading concerns.

Around 46 percent of women students were concerned with the level of difficulty of the texts. Meanwhile, 39 percent of men students were concerned with staying focused while reading. Women students are worried about understanding the text, while men students are worried about their ability to stay focused.

The focus of the students' concerns is consistent with the line of thinking that the motivations of women and men students differ. Most of both men and women students agreed that they could focus on reading for 30 minutes, so their expectation for college reading is that it will exceed their 30-minute comfort zone, and their level of reading comprehension.

Regardless of the reason, many students men and women, do not feel prepared for college-level reading, while educators are trying how to better gauge their readiness and, more importantly, their willingness to learn.

Related: 

• Black Readers Findings

Revisiting “Reading and Community”

By Joyce Woodard

Perhaps reading within a community that makes you feel seen does make the reading experience better, but why?

In my February 6, 2026, piece, "Reading and Community” I explained how, since being in college, I have found that when you are reading within a community, it makes reading more enjoyable. In that piece, I didn’t really dive into why I didn’t think reading alone was less enjoyable, and I think I should have focused more on that. In hindsight, I think the entry should have been less about how it’s more fun to read when you are reading with others, and more about how to make reading more pleasurable alone.

I’m glad I revisited this piece because it’s changing the way I view reading again. When I wrote this earlier in the year, I had already begun rethinking the way I read, and I think this piece encapsulates my process of becoming a more consistent reader well.

Related: 

• Black Readers Findings

The James Baldwin Revival and the Richard Wright Surge

Publishing developments can affect young readers at pivotal moments and have lasting effects on their intellectual and professional lives.

Reading William Maxwell's "James Baldwinisn Now: A Short History of the Baldwin Revival, 1998-2024" had me reflecting on what we might call the Richard Wright surge and what it meant for my own intellectual and professional development. Maxwell charts the Baldwin revival, which began taking shape with the 1998 release of Library of America editions of Baldwin's early novels and collected essays, edited by Toni Morrison.

In 1991, Arnold Rampersad edited Library of America editions of Wright's works, and publishers subsequently produced new and revised paperback editions, making his writings more accessible and easier for professors to incorporate into their courses. Consequently, in the late 1990s, as an undergraduate at Tougaloo College, I took a course devoted entirely to Wright, taught by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

I view the publication of Wright materials as a surge rather than a revival because there had always been considerable interest in Wright. However, the reissuing of his works gave that interest new momentum and expanded opportunities for readers, teachers, and scholars to engage his writings. Although bibliographies document aspects of these developments, I wish we had more essays on Wright, Toni Morrison, and other writers like Maxwell's essay on Baldwin. Such accounts move beyond lists of publications to offer narrative interpretations of literary developments and their broader implications.

Without those Wright editions, and without my close proximity to a Wright scholar who was keenly aware of developments in publishing, my relationship to Wright and African American literary studies might have taken a different course. The convergence of publishing activity, scholarly expertise, and classroom instruction helped shape my intellectual trajectory. I was definitely a beneficiary of the Richard Wright surge, the way I'm sure subsequent emerging scholars were beneficiaries of the Baldwin revival. 

Related: 

• William Maxwell Pulls a Kinnamon with His "James Baldwinism Now" Article/Survey