Meet Sonny
This is Sonny's given name.
What is Carson?
This character is Sonny's mother.
Who is Willie?
Sonny works for this civil rights organization.
What is the NAACP?
Sonny resents his father because Robert did this to his family.
What is abandoned or left them?
Sonny is waiting in this place at the beginning of the chapter.
What is jail?
Sonny lives mainly in this neighborhood in New York.
What is Harlem?
This character is Sonny's father.
Who is Robert?
Sonny's NAACP work focuses on these living conditions.
What are the housing conditions?
Robert lives as a white man through this practice.
What is passing as white?
This person comes to bail Sonny out.
Who is Willie?
Sonny struggles with addiction to this drug.
This coal miner is Sonny's maternal grandfather.
Who is H?
Name two housing problems Sonny encounters.
What are overcrowding, rats, or cockroaches?
How does Sonny repeat the behavior he resents in Robert?
He becomes absent from his children's lives.
Sonny first becomes captivated by Amani while watching her do this.
What is singing or performing at the jazz club?
After leaving his NAACP job, Sonny works in this type of establishment.
What is a jazz club?
This character is Sonny's younger half-sister.
Who is Josephine?
Sonny's housing work reminds him of this experience from his childhood.
What is living in extrememly crowded housing with his family?
How does Willie challenge Sonny's belief that she never fought for him?
She explains that her work, sacrifices, and move to New York were ways of fighting for his future.
During their conversation near the end, Willie finally explains the circumstances surrounding this person's departure.
Who is Robert?
This singer becomes romantically in love with Sonny.
Who is Amani?
What is a professional singer?
Why does Sonny become discouraged with his housing work?
He can document injustice but cannot easily fix it or create meaningful change.
Why is the ending hopeful without proving that Sonny has recovered?
Staying with Willie suggests a willingness to choose differently, but one decision does not resolve his addiction.
At the chapter's end, Sonny chooses to do this instead of immediately leaving to use drugs.
What is staying with Willie?