49 pages • 1 hour read
Melissa Fay GreenePraying for Sheetrock
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1991A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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How Power Intersects With Corruption
Sheriff Poppell rules McIntosh County like a dictator and amasses even more wealth—power—through his illegal ventures: “Sheriff Thomas Poppell flourished in a system of favoritism, nepotism, and paternalism known as ‘the courthouse gang’ or the ‘good old boy system’” (74). These courthouse gangs are infamous in Georgia at the time. Nepotism and corruption flourish in rural Georgia, particularly among the small cadre of white men who control each county, who pass their positions down to their appointed heirs and fill other posts with their friends. They pervert America’s representative system of government for their own social status and financial gain: “They were, in a sense, middlemen, guaranteeing their county’s votes to state and national politicians, in exchange for favors that they were then able to pass along to the constituents” (77).
Of course, that power dynamic shifts forever after the black residents of McIntosh protest the shooting of Finch. On that day, Alston—and the greater black community—comes to realize their power as the majority demographic in McIntosh County. Alston says, “I’ll tell you what: I think that was the first time we really felt […] we had more blacks than whites. The sheriff could do nothing with that district from that day until the day he died” (138). However, Poppell still controls the voting booth and curtails black political representation—not to mention the immense poverty of the black community: “The white perception of black power is always greatly exaggerated,’ said David Walbert, in irritation” (210). Still, this is the beginning of an undeniable shift in power, and the end of the “good old boy” network that brings Poppell to power.
When Poppell falls, Alston rises: “Like playmates on a seesaw, one came down and the other went up” (269). However, power is never permanent, as Alston’s case illustrates. There is a fundamental difference between these two men. Poppell never aspires to any sort of real idealistic vision; he pretends to pander to the black community while systematically oppressing them. He is, in fact, a racist. Despite a façade of generosity, Poppell remains the same cutthroat man his entire life. Alston’s character arc is different: He starts out as an idealistic visionary, but he becomes corrupted and disillusioned through his life experiences and the reality of being the only black politician with real influence in McIntosh County. Alston’s story initially follows the “rags to riches” trope—at least in terms of political power—but Alston’s downfall brings him even lower than his initial position before he rose to power.
Alston’s downfall seems to be a parable following the classic saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Gay Jacobs says, “It seemed as though power, or lust for power, or something changed him […] it happens to everybody” (324). However, the idea that absolute power corrupts everyone it touches may not be so simple, Greene suggests. The undercover agent J.R. asks, “Is everyone ultimately corruptible?” (317). J.R. answers his own question when he cites an example of a white commissioner who refused to participate in J.R.’s scheme. J.R. says, “I don’t think the county has lost a whole lot in Thurnell [Alston]. I think they have plenty of good people to run for office” (317). The book underscores that there is danger in relying on a single leader to support a community, as individuals are fickle and liable to become corrupt unless there is some means to check their power.
The Rich Inner Lives of McIntosh’s Black Community
One of the subtler themes of the book is Greene’s emphasis on both the beauty and pain of black life in McIntosh County. She doesn’t treat the poverty of black men and women as something to be pitied. She treats black people as people with rich inner lives of their own—a complex tapestry as worthy of being explored as that of any rich white man’s story. For example, see how Greene chooses to illustrate repetitive tedium of Fanny’s life: “Bed, field, table, field, church. Bed. Field. Table: a hollow gallop of wooden bowls on a wooden table” (105). She imbues even this simple daily routine with an importance through the lyrical repetition of the nouns that give her life and sustenance—bed, field, church, and table.
It’s no coincidence that—apart from Sheriff Poppell—Greene centers Praying for Sheetrock primarily on the lives of black residents, whose private stories have often been neglected in mainstream media and high literature:
Deeper than that is the history of the place that is known locally and not often told, except among insiders; these stories are referred to in a close-mouthed, roundabout way […] These are the private chronicles that people relate to themselves, the most secret plots and narratives, like glorious cave paintings never discovered by spelunkers, gently erased by rising water and mud (100).
Greene also taps into the different ways that blacks relate to their struggles: “For some, like Henry Curry, the inner paintings told the story of gaining and living in freedom; and for other, humbler ones, the paintings told the story of seeking food and warmth” (100). Some of the black people in McIntosh County center their lives on feeding and providing a shelter for themselves and their families; others dream higher and see the glue of their stories as their collective struggle for freedom.
One of the later chapters mentions how Becca feeds a hungry old woman who appears in her yard. McIntosh’s black residents rely on community support from their neighbors, and, most importantly, their faith in God. Greene instills the hymns, songs, and meetings of the black church with beauty. Apart from being the center of black political life, Greene focuses on the black church because faith in God gives the black residents of McIntosh County resilience from the times of slavery to the 1970s: “Children, all we that been in slavery got something to tell God when we go home” (103).
As white people like the Scottish Direct Descendants cling to their history, black people cling to God for solace—and eventual justice. They know that they will be rewarded for their faith. Greene shows us the beauty of this faith in her words: “The old people understand that God may work in subtle or even inscrutable ways, but they expect justice in exchange for a lifetime’s devotion […] And when, in the 1970s, the white people invoked history, the black people, packing their churches, called out to God” (28)
The Myth of “Separate but Equal”
The phrase “separate but equal” has its origins in the 1896 US Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson. An African-American man, Homer Plessy, refused to sit in a train car for blacks only. The judges ruled that segregation in public facilities—as in separate train cars for whites and blacks—on the basis of race was constitutional due to the “separate but equal” doctrine, which stated that separate facilities for races were legal so long as they were of equal quality (even though many facilities for blacks were of inferior quality). The court case gave rise to Jim Crow laws establishing segregation as a fact of life throughout the South.
The “separate but equal” doctrine was eventually overturned in the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case from 1954, which concerned segregation in the public school system. The majority opinion for that case ruled that separate facilities were inherently unequal. The myth of “separate but equal” legally ended, but it took years to end that system in the South.
With that context in mind, we look at how white people uphold the myth of “separate but equal” in McIntosh County. Most of the white and black residents of McIntosh are raised in completely separate communities—the whites in Darien, the blacks in rural McIntosh—and have little direct interaction with one another. They live, work, and marry and have lives completely independent of each other: “We were raised not to mix,’ said Belle Thorpe in 1990 […]” (24). The white residents credit the lack of overt racial dissent in McIntosh to this relegation of white and black residents to their separate spheres of life. As we can see from the destitute conditions in which many blacks live in McIntosh County—impoverished and lacking not only political representation, but opportunity for financial or educational advancement—this is a complete lie concocted by the white residents to mask the ugliness of segregation. Greene writes: “The historic black community of McIntosh lived in a sort of pale outside a century of American progress and success” (20).
Alston’s understanding of segregation and racial injustice starts at a young age, when he—a hungry teenager—is forced to work to support himself instead of finishing school as the white children do. His friend spots a white boy driving a nice car as they hitchhike to work in the chill of winter: “They talking about hard times. A white boy just drove by in my dream” (39). For black people in McIntosh who grow up under these harsh circumstances, civil rights might as well be a biblical myth, even after the end of legal segregation: “Martin Luther King might have delivered the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech dressed in flowing white robes, so hallowed and remote did his life appear to McIntosh County” (22). In McIntosh County, de facto segregation continues well into the 1970s-80s, as blacks live as second-class citizens and lack much political representation or even social services.
Even after the black and white residents begin to interact in public spaces, there is still a lack of a genuine understanding of the other race. For black people to be taken seriously in white establishments, they must imitate their white counterparts: “If you carry yourself in a nice way, then the whites, they won’t mind mixing with you because they see you are trying to be somebody. You go into these places and act just as intelligent as the whites” (26). By the 1970s, there is a pervasive sentiment among older black individuals like Thorpe that racism seems to be over, even though white and black Georgians live in two deeply different and unequal worlds: “Racism is pretty much gone out of my life,’ said Deacon Thorpe” (26). Some blacks buy into this myth because although explicit racism may begin to slip away in the 1970s, structural racism—the entrenched poverty and lack of political power—remains.
Although black people in Darien live in poverty segregated from white Darien in accordance with the “prevailing social codes,” black people still believe attacks like the one on Finch go too far, as “blacks are not, after all, to be slaughtered like hogs” (122). Attacks like the one perpetuated by the police officer Hutchinson, in which black people are suddenly harmed with little justification, violate the fragile peace existing between white and black Darien. This is the moment when the black community truly starts to upend the “separate but equal” myth in their community and seeks Alston to represent them on the county commission; political representation is a key first step to toppling structural racism. As Devillers—the only black man on the city council—says, “We were separate, but we were never equal […] My philosophy has been in order for me to get the same food, I have to sit at the same table” (335).
