Song of Solomon

“It was a genuinely clarifying public notice because it gave Southside residents a way to keep their memories alive and please the city legislators as well. They called it Not Doctor Street, and were inclined to call the charity hospital at its northern end No Mercy Hospital since it was 1931, on the day following Mr. Smith’s leap from its cupola, before the first colored expectant mother was allowed to give birth inside its wards and not on its steps.” 

Southside residents confront the indignities of racism every day. For example, because they are Black, Southside residents are not allowed in the segregated Mercy Hospital until 1931, and the only reason the hospital makes an exception that day is because of the unusual events surrounding both Mr. Smith’s suicide and Macon Dead III’s birth. The Black residents call attention to the hypocrisy of the hospital’s name in their unofficial and ironic renaming of the hospital as No Mercy Hospital. Another ironic renaming occurs when Mains Avenue becomes first Doctor Street and then Not Doctor Street. This renaming occurs when the Southside residents appropriate the official language of the posted signs that demand residents stop calling the road Doctor Street. They follow the signs literally, and humorously, and Not Doctor Street is born.

“The nurse gazed at the stout woman as though she had spoken Welsh. Then she closed her mouth, looked again at the cat-eyed boy, and lacing her fingers, spoke her next words very slowly to him.” 

This is one of the few times in the novel when White characters speak, and when the White nurse speaks to young Guitar, she does so in a condescending way, slowing down her speech because she assumes he isn’t very smart. However, her language shows that she herself struggles to communicate, while Guitar understands everything, even proving her superior, at least in terms of spelling and manners.