The Nickel Boys

Chained alongside two White boys, Elwood is arrested and transported to Nickel Academy. At first glance, Nickel appears no different from a college campus: well-maintained grounds, red brick buildings, shade trees. Like other schools, Nickel is segregated: some buildings are for the White boys and others for Black boys. Inside the Academy, the boys are reassured that Nickel is simply a school with a staff of teachers. Superintendent Maynard Spencer lays out the rules—boys who apply themselves, stay out of trouble, and focus on their studies achieve the rank of Ace and can leave to return to their families. Implicit in these rules is a severe threat to those not obeying the rules.

Elwood tries to take some hope from the fact that the dormitory’s house father Blakeley is an older Black man, assuming “the black staff looked after their own” (50). Walking Elwood to his dormitory, Blakeley explains the rules: All boys are required to attend school and to work, to learn responsibility and sustainable life skills. The dormitories, however, present a different reality from the trees and manicured lawns: threadbare and fraying linens, peeling paint, graffiti. Lying in bed that night, Elwood hears a horrible mechanical sound and cries himself to sleep, wondering how fate has landed him in this place.