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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What realization does the author have about his university education?

2. Which writer inspired the author as a young man?

3. What does the author tell his son about responsibility?

4. According to the author, what is the purpose of defining races of people?

5. How did the author's father react when the author threatened his 9th grade teacher?

Short Essay Questions

1. For what reasons did the author's father punish him and why?

2. According to the author, how have American police departments been given the right to destroy black bodies without the fear of recrimination?

3. What conflicting thoughts does the author have about the civil rights movement of the 1960s?

4. How important were books to the author as he was growing up?

5. Why did the author's mother encourage him to write?

6. Why did the author's son experience such extreme grief when Michael Brown's killer was set free?

7. What influence did Malcom X have on the author as a young man?

8. What is the author's interpretation of "The Dream"?

9. According to the author, how has the lack of fathers and father-figures affected black children?

10. How did fear shape the author's childhood?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Fear is a recurring theme in the author's memoir. What role does fear play in the lives of black Americans? How has fear preserved the author's body? Has fear repressed the author? What are some of the positive and negative effects of the fear he has experienced throughout his life?

Essay Topic 2

The author spends a great deal of time describing his Mecca, Howard University, as an escape from the fear that once plagued his life as a child on the streets of Baltimore. Keeping in mind that Howard is a private university that not every student can afford, what other Meccas might exist in America that could parallel the author's experience? Are there other places or experiences that could provide a similar bond of safety and community for the black student? If so, what? Is the author's Mecca a physical place or a state of mind? Explain your answer citing examples from the author's work.

Essay Topic 3

The author speaks often of a body that is easily broken. The theme of impending violence is an undercurrent that runs throughout the memoir. Is the author referring solely to physical violence or to a deeper emotional state of being? Based off of the author's observations, which might be more damaging in the long run - the threat of physical violence or a constant undercurrent of emotional upheaval?

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