Anyone who grew up a wealthy or middle-class person of color can attest to particular life problems: You are seen as a representative of your “people” wherever you go, microaggressions are standard fare no matter how much authority you have, and the weight of your ancestors is always heavy on your shoulders. In Nancy Johnson’s second novel, People of Means, these problems are expansively explored. Following a mother and daughter, Johnson details the ways racial discrimination changed throughout the 20th century and the ways it remained very much the same.
Freda Gilroy matriculates at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1959. Regarded as the most famous Black university in the world, Fisk puts pressure on Freda, who was raised among Chicago’s Black elite, to rise to the heights of Black excellence, fulfilling W.E.B. Du Bois’ plan for the “talented tenth.” Nashville is very different from Chicago, though, and in the South, Freda realizes how protected she had been from the realities of racist discrimination and segregation. After seeing “WHITE” and “COLORED” signs on the bathrooms during a date to the state fair, a small fire lights in Freda, one that will be stoked into a full conflagration.
Decades later, in 1992, Freda’s daughter Tulip has also achieved success with her cushy public relations job. Having fought her way to the top, she starts to take inventory of her life, but when she hears the Rodney King verdict and sees the ensuing riots, Tulip realizes that all she’s accomplished might not be that important to her. Across decades, both mother and daughter are called to question what justice really is and to fight for what they believe in.
In our current political moment, People of Means feels vital. Decades have passed since Tulip’s timeline, and still people are fighting for racial equality. Johnson shows us that the fight will go on, because our thirst for justice is unquenchable.
