Jefferson Negro School in Intruder in the Dust (Location)

Aleck Sander attends the "Negro school" in Jefferson, while his lifelong friend Chick attends the "white school" (126). Both schools are closed when Gavin mentions them, because of the threat of a lynching. This is one of the few places in the fictions that acknowledge the reality of Yoknapatawpha's segregated school system, and is an instance of how, in this novel, the absence of the Negro population or the closing of the "Negro school" makes what can usually be assumed more explicit. "White," for example, seldom needs to be overtly stated in the fictions, as is evidenced by the fact that while "the High School" that Chick attends is mentioned two other times (26, 121), there is no need for the racial modifier: "the" high school is the white one. The novel does not mention this "Negro school" anywhere else. Our decision is locate it in the section of Jefferson identified in other texts as the "Negro" section is an interpretive act.