The Young Landlords

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1979

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-20

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Jack Johnson

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and analyzes the source text’s treatment of racism.

When Mrs. Brown calls Paul in the middle of the night, weeping because Jack Johnson—the former heavyweight boxing champion who died in a car wreck more than 30 years before—has just died in her bed of a heart attack, the duty-bound teenager treks to Mrs. Brown’s apartment and consoles her until the sun rises; then Mrs. Brown tells him to come by later because Jack Johnson likes to sleep in. Johnson dies several more times over the course of the novel, and it becomes clear that this cycle of death and resurrection is a longstanding feature of Mrs. Brown’s life.

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The real Jack Johnson was the first Black heavyweight boxing champion, holding the title for a remarkable seven-year run from 1908 to 1915. His defeat of white boxer James Jeffries, in a 1910 match dubbed “the fight of the century,” sparked racist, anti-Black riots in cities across the country. Johnson’s success in the boxing ring and defiance of racist norms in his personal life—he married a white woman and ran a desegregated restaurant and nightclub in Chicago—made him a target of racist anger, but it also made him a beacon of hope to millions of Black people at a time of intense oppression. For Mrs. Brown, he is a symbol of hope and grief, as the better future he represented seems far away from the reality of life in Harlem in 1979. His recurrent death and resurrection represents a cycle of lost and renewed hope. As Paul ceases to view Mrs. Brown as merely an eccentric tenant and comes to understand the emotional weight of her story, his sense of community enlarges.

Conflicted Father/Son Relationship

Repeatedly through the first dozen chapters of the narrative, the author records clashes between Paul and his father. Paul describes in intricate detail the manner in which his father lays logical traps for him that end with annoying, constantly repeated lessons. Though he often feels so defeated he does not fight back and just tries to endure his father’s haranguing, Paul is not without the ability to point out his father’s hypocrisy, as when he notes that, in America, Chris does have the benefit of being innocent until proven guilty. When his father bemoans the great waste of public funds over a relatively insignificant criminal trial, Paul points out that this trial could permanently destroy his friend’s life and is, therefore, not insignificant.

The motif of a conflicted father/son relationship, which pervades more than half the book, shifts dramatically beginning in Chapter 13 when Paul travels with his father to attend the funeral of Jerry, the uncle whom Paul never knew. This marks three major shifts in the relationship of father and son. First, Paul realizes that the emotion behind his father’s badgering is not hatred or anger but rather fear that he will end up like his uncle. Second, as Paul reflects on his father’s desperation after Paul nearly gets shot at the warehouse, Paul realizes that his father—like him—faces dilemmas for which there are simply no easy answers. Third, doors of communication open between father and son. This new openness, denoted by the fact that Paul’s father did not criticize him for using the street fair money to buy stereo equipment, leads to his father’s recognition that Paul was right, and that his son is more than capable of making sound decisions for himself.

Chris’s Prosecution

The novel contains two overlapping storylines. The primary narrative is that of the young landlords, in which a slumlord cleverly unloads a money-losing, ramshackle tenement onto a handful of teens. It does not take long for the teens to feel hoodwinked, making it seem all but inevitable that the Action Group will try to get rid of the building. At the same time, a secondary narrative follows the story of Chris, an ordinary teen from the neighborhood who falls into a police sting. His arrest for burglary is based not on any solid evidence but rather on the questionable testimony of a co-defendant.

For Walter Dean Myers, the background story of Chris and his seemingly hopeless attempt to prove he did not commit the crime for which he is accused is symbolic of the experience of Black youth in New York City in 1979. Chris embodies the common dilemma: The prejudiced police already believe the worst about him; the insignificance of his particular case results in no zeal on the part of investigators to find the underlying truth, and there is no alternative investigative force to assist the defendant; law officers show no interest in the protestations of other Black citizens about this crime since, for them, it is another case to forget about.

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Even when the Action Group at last reveals the truth, they discover there is no complete vindication. Chris’s corrupt boss compromised him by offering him money out of a sense of guilt. Chris is guilty not of the burglary but of accepting proceeds tainted by the burglary. Thus, Chris becomes permanently constrained like the Captain, A.B., and others. He survives but with the permanent stain of illegality. Despite his innocence, Chris, like Jerry, A.B., and the Captain, finds himself trapped by inherent inequalities, injustices, and prejudices.