The Intuitionist

Central to Whitehead’s allegory surrounding racial uplift is the symbol of the elevator—and elevation more broadly. At its most basic level, the elevator symbolizes 20th century modernity, as the invention made the growth of densely-populated, vertically-rising cities possible. By extension, the elevator also offers some measure of racial uplift; it is vertical cities like the book’s setting—modeled after mid-century New York—where Black Americans like Lila Mae and Pompey are afforded far greater opportunities than in the small Southern towns where they grew up.

This racial uplift is also illusory. The book’s setting is perhaps the only place in the country where Lila Mae could obtain a job as a Black female elevator inspector. She also faces daily indignities from white colleagues and strangers alike, and her bosses largely view her as a token—a gesture to an increasingly diverse and progressive constituency. Lila Mae’s unique position and the allegory of racial uplift are both embodied by the Fanny Briggs Elevator Stack, which Lila Mae is assigned to inspect. Named for an enslaved woman who taught herself to read and escaped to the North, the elevator should be a powerful symbol for Black progress.