Separate Pasts Mclaurin Analysis

In Separate Pasts, Melton A. McLaurin revisits his youth days that he spent during the 1950s in Wade, North Carolina, a small segregated town. McLaurin’s family had a good living status in Wade, his father had a job in an insurance company and his grandfather owned a convenience store, where he used to work. McLaurin worked in his grandfather’s store since he was in the seventh grade and he worked there until he left for college. During McLaurin’s time working in the store, he was familiar with many blacks as many of them used to live close to the store. McLaurin liked having conversation with the blacks and in Separate Pasts, he remembers the time that he spent with some of the blacks, who challenged his personal beliefs in terms of racial prejudice and segregation. One person that McLaurin remembers in Separate Pasts is James Robert Fuller, Jr., who by McLaurin, was usually known as Bobo by everyone in Wade. McLaurin remembers James because of an incident that he had with James during his youth days in Wade which made him question his own racial prejudice. McLaurin had known James his entire life and he knew all about his family. James was one year younger than McLaurin and they both used

McLaurin’s Separate Pasts does a very good job of reflecting the injustices of segregation during the 1950’s in the south. The black people that McLaurin describes in his book and the impact they had in his own beliefs are good examples how black lives were in a segregated south during that time period. Surprises such as, a white man found not guilty of killing his wife and the black man, when he found them in bed together, questions and attracts reader to his world, his true and deep explanations about each and every black person makes readers realize themselves the challenge racial prejudice and segregation created among the whites and the blacks. However, the book shows McLaurin as someone very special which might make readers question his