Fire from the Rock

Sylvia and DJ look at magazines and get ready for bed. DJ asks if she will also have to attend school with white students because she doesn’t want to and she worries that the grown-ups will make a mess of everything when they make that happen. Sylvia reassures her that lawmakers take forever to change laws and so she is likely fine for a while. While looking at a magazine, DJ comments on how her father could never be president of the United States because he is “colored.” Sylvia says that white people will never let a Black woman be crowned Miss America, either. DJ tells Sylvia she is pretty, and Sylvia is shocked at the compliment. Gary joins them and declares that Sylvia is the perfect person to integrate Central High. He says that if it were him, he would only “burn the place down” (83).

When Sylvia writes in her diary, she wonders what real beauty is and reflects on how all the images around her depict beauty as also being white and light. She remembers one of her favorite childhood toys as being a white baby doll because “they don’t make Negro dolls” (85).