Chapters 1-2

Reading Check

1. Murphy Homes (Chapter 1)

2. Wrestling (Chapter 1)

3.  The pope” (Chapter 1)

4. Tioga Parkway (Chapter 1)

5. Crack (Chapter 2)

6. Upward Bound (Chapter 2)

7. The athletes (Chapter 2)

Short Answer

1. Coates’s father is strict, committed to work and discipline, and he does not support Coates and his brother’s interest in wrestling. He is a “Conscious Man” in that he is committed to reviving lost histories of African American culture. He is also a teacher of “Knowledge” who prints books in his basement for his self-run publishing house. He is the father of seven kids by four different women. (Chapter 1)

2. Big Bill is the oldest sibling in the Coates household, and he seeks to turn all his younger siblings into warriors. He is a fighter. (Various chapters)

3. Coates’s narrative transitions between anecdotal story, contemporary reflection, and broader characterization of the people in his life. He writes with a style that is part poetry, part stream-of-consciousness prose, which aids in the effect that every day events and people come across as myth. (Various chapters)

Chapters 3-4

Reading Check

1. The Vietnam War (

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