Shame Dick Gregory Summary

Dick Gregory author of Shame, in his 1964 autobiography narrates the first incident in his life where he learns the meaning of shame. He recreates the experience to show his feelings to the reader. Gregory begins with his memoir where he first learns of hate which is ironically, in elementary school. He begins his story when he is seven years of age and he and other classmates were asked to donate to the less fortunate. Gregory, unaware of his financial standing was willing to donate the little that he had to show that he could donate like the rest of the class and to impress Helene a girl he admired in his childhood. In this incident, the teacher knowing his financial circumstance rejected Gregory’s attempt at donation. Instead, she ridiculed …show more content…
Prior to the Civil Rights Act, most African Americans lived in poverty. Jobs were scarce and education was limited.” The minimum wage for workers subject to the Act was set at $1.00 an hour effective September 1961.” (Us Department of labor 1). Gregory was too poor to eat and the hunger pains affected his ability to stay focused in school, “Paste doesn’t taste too bad when you’re hungry.”(Gregory 164) Gregory emphasizes the extent of his poverty by illustrating the extremes he would endure to end the …show more content…
During that time, the economy took a negative turn which was the beginning of the recession. Many people who I knew lost homes , jobs and relocated out of state .“The Great Recession is a term that represents the sharp decline in economic activity during the late 2000s, which is generally considered the largest downturn since the Great Depression.” (Investopedia 1) Moving to Yuba city was a reverse effect compared to Folsom, I was no longer under privalaged but I was still under the impression that California residents lived similar to families in El Dorado Hills. My first day as a junior in high school, I drove my mothers’ 2007 BMW Z4, which was valued at $32,000 .(Autotrader 1) My expectations on that day was trenched in the belief that all students in California lived like my friends in Folsom and El Dorado Hills . But to my surprise the majority of the students in Yuba City drove practical compact cars such as Toyota Tercels , Plymouths and Regals. Many students were in the same economic standing as I was when I first moved to California. I began to have the same emotions as my former friends in Folsom. Even though I had more valuable assets, I still had the feeling of Shame that I had become materialistic, I had lost the essence of myself. In comparison to Gregory who always strived for the best to please his classmates he felt the