"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children."
- Nelson Mandela
- Nelson Mandela
Stories which encompass children as main characters grant an innocence to the work, which allows Toni Cade Bambara to delve into complex problems of children, specifically in New York. According to Figure 1, in 1990 the population of children accounted for 24% of the overall population in New York City.
FIGURE 1FIGURE 2The crack epidemic had been on the rise since the 1980s with New York acting as one of the central hubs. Add to this that the majority of black children were living under the poverty lines at this time (FIG 2), it is fair to assume that this caused people to leave the downtrodden Harlem in search of a better way of living. Those remaining from this exodus had to fight to survive among the poverty and drugs while still trying to raise children in that disheartening environment. Toni Cade Bambara writes of Sylvia in “The Lesson” as crossing from the threshold of a childish mindset, into having unsettling thoughts about the poverty she is living in while other people live with wealth.
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