Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dreams from My Father, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family and Community
Fathers, Sons, and Manhood
Race and Identity
Storytelling and Truth
Summary
Analysis
Barack sits with Reverend Philips, talking about historically Black churches. Reverend Phillips talks about slave religion, the Southern churches, and the history of churches in Chicago. He says that as a result of segregation, both well-off and poor Black people worship together. This allows the churches to circulate ideas better, but he’s not sure this will continue. Many of his congregants have moved to the suburbs and are unwilling to volunteer for programs that keep them in the city past dark. Barack asks Reverend Philips for introductions to other pastors. Philips mentions Reverend Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ and says that Barack has good ideas, but churches do things their own way. When he learns that Barack doesn’t attend church, he suggests he start going to win over the pastors.
As Reverend Philips talks, he makes a point to talk about the churches as institutions that foster community. And in particular, he appreciates the way that having exclusively Black churches binds people of different classes together due to their race. This, he suggests, helps create the sense that Black people are all in the fight together, which he believes creates a stronger sense of community among the congregants. This is, however, starting to slip away as Black people move out of the city. As Barack made clear earlier in the memoir, people must consistently tend to communities to keep them running.
Themes
Barack sits in his car. It’s a beautiful September day and no one but Johnnie knows that Barack plans to leave for law school next year. Johnnie congratulated Barack and insisted it was just a matter of time before he left. This made Barack defensive and Barack retorted that he’d still return to Chicago. Barack plans to take a trip to Kenya after he quits his job, and he knows that law school will give him an understanding of how power actually works. This knowledge will help him make change. But Barack wonders if this is just a fiction and he wonders if he’ll end up like the Old Man. Perhaps he’s just trying to escape, like so many Black people before him.
As Barack wonders if he’s trying to escape like the Old Man did, he’s realizing that Roy was right: it’s impossible to truly start over and leave one’s past behind. In some ways, this is a good thing for Barack. He has no intention of abandoning Chicago for a fancy law firm elsewhere; he still feels like he needs to come back and help on the South Side. But this doesn’t stop him from wondering if he’s still making a mistake—if going to law school is really just a way to avoid some unsavory truth about the world.
Themes
Barack also recognizes that, in Chicago, he can live part of his life in the swanky downtown and part of it in the South Side and people will think of him as a role model. Johnnie and the other leaders don’t think success like that is wrong—and indeed, most Black people he’s met aren’t judgmental and high-minded, like the Old Man in Ann’s stories. Most people are more like Lolo and accept Barack just because of his skin color. Barack wonders if he came to Chicago just to find this acceptance, but he knows that he also came to serve the community and help it thrive.
However much Barack suspects he might mistakenly be following in his father’s footsteps, he also recognizes that most people who love and support him now wouldn’t be at all upset with him for becoming successful. The Old Man was unique in this regard, and in this sense, Barack begins to see that Lolo and even Gramps were better role models than his father. They pushed Barack to be who Barack is.
Themes
Barack continues to meet with Black pastors in the city. Once Barack gets to know them, he discovers that these pastors are thoughtful, generous, and hardworking. They talk openly about their struggles and ask Barack about his own faith. Several younger pastors point Barack to Reverend Wright; older pastors are more skeptical. At the end of October, Barack finally visits Reverend Wright. Children and older women mill around after finishing dancing classes, daycare, or Bible study. Reverend Wright’s Black assistant offers Barack coffee and shares that she’s moving out to the suburbs for her son’s sake. Reverend Wright calls Barack to his office.
Connecting with these pastors throughout the city helps Barack discover that there are many mentors and father figures of sorts in Chicago, trying to help all congregants and possible congregants find the best versions of themselves. The pastors make it clear to Barack that anyone can step in and make a difference in someone’s life—and indeed, asking Barack about his faith is likely their way of trying to help Barack be a better person.
Themes
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Reverend Wright explains that he’s trying to build a new sanctuary and is arguing with the bankers—they think the church will collapse if he dies, so they want him to take out another life insurance policy. But Reverend Wright explains that the bankers are wrong. The congregation will pull together even if he’s not around. He shares some of his history and Barack realizes that it’s Reverend Wright’s ability to reconcile “the conflicting strains of Black experience” that makes the church successful. The church has 4000 members and a variety of clubs. Reverend Wright says that young men like Barack are the hardest to reach, as they think going to church makes them look weak. This makes Barack uncomfortable.
When Reverend Wright talks about the bankers’ fears, he implies that the bankers think of Wright much like they think of Harold Washington—a unifying figure with no clear successor, which makes the durability of their work a bit tenuous. This isn’t an entirely misguided way of thinking, but Reverend Wright has more faith in his congregation’s love of God than the bankers do. Because of that, Wright believes that he’s simply around to facilitate his congregants’ spiritual education; he isn’t the reason that their community exists.
Themes
Barack shares his goals and Reverend Wright promises to help. But he says his involvement might not be helpful; many other pastors don’t appreciate Trinity, either for being too emotional or radical. Barack interjects that many think “the church is too upwardly mobile,” which Reverend Wright says is nonsense. He calls out the people who think that former gangsters or Muslims don’t belong in a Christian churches, and those who think churches who focus on education are suspect. He points out that cops don’t check how much money he has when they pull him over and that this country is never safe for Black men, no matter where they are.
As far as Reverend Wright is concerned, everyone who wants to be in a church belongs there. It’s a failure on the part of a church, he suggests, to turn away people who are looking for community or help simply because they come from a different faith or have led a harder life. The way that Reverend Wright responds to Barack opens up the possibility that exclusionary practices of other churches might be contributing to the crumbling communities in Chicago.
Themes
In the parking lot, Barack flips through a brochure detailing Trinity’s “Black Value System.” He comes to a commandment insisting that members refuse to pursue “middleclassness.” It says that while it’s fine to be middle class, it’s not okay to achieve success and think of oneself as better than others. Barack thinks of this often in the coming weeks. He sees that while there are lots of teachers and secretaries in the congregation and while most of the church’s funds go to helping the poor, there are lots of Black professionals at Trinity. All of them, however, came to Trinity to find themselves and a sense of belonging. Barack also sees that due to the different socioeconomic statuses of the congregation, the congregation becomes more unified in their Black identities.
Through reading the church’s value system, Barack discovers that Reverend Wright is fighting the exact same fight that he is. They both want to try to keep Black people in the city so that the Black community can continue to improve and get stronger. The testimonies of the Black professionals in the congregation help Barack see the results of having such a socioeconomically diverse congregation: everyone gets to learn from someone different, which binds people from different backgrounds together as Black people.
Themes
Despite all this, Barack still wonders whether this kind of church will keep people from fleeing the city or keep young men out of jail. Sometimes he asks congregants these questions. Inevitably, they tell him he has good ideas and invite him to join the church so they can start a community program. But as Barack doubts his own faith, he shrugs these offers off.
The congregants who invite Barack to join and start a community program seem to imply that as a community-wide organizer, Barack is thinking too big. If he starts smaller and focuses on this one group that’s already more cohesive, he might have better results.
Themes
Harold Washington dies unexpectedly the day before Thanksgiving, mere months after winning reelection. The streets are silent and people cry. Mourners visit the body at City Hall and, soon after the funeral, Washington’s loyalists meet to decide who will take his place. But it’s too late: the diverse coalition that elected him shatters. Barack watches constituents harass Black aldermen for cutting a deal with white council members; later, he sees two aldermen—one white and one Black, who belong to rival factions— whispering conspiratorially in their fancy suits, hiding their smiles from the crowd. Barack throws himself into work and into preparing Johnnie to take over once Barack leaves for Harvard. His acceptance packet reminds him of Gramps’s joy reading the Punahou catalog. Barack had pretended to understand Gramps’s joy, but he wanted to be in Indonesia back then, running barefoot. He feels a bit like that now.
Harold Washington’s death proves that while Washington himself was a charismatic, talented politician, he was a more a symbol of what Black people could do than an effective leader. After all, he failed to nurture the coalition that elected him or groom a successor, so there’s no clear way to continue the work he was doing now that he’s gone. Immediately after Washington’s death, Barack notices that the already tenuous community ties are fraying and politicians are using their power to cut deals that don’t benefit their constituents while trying to hide their actions from the gathered crowds. This makes Barack’s decision to leave for Harvard even more difficult, as he’s well aware that he’s leaving Chicago when it really needs him. But Barack also believes that he needs to go to law school to become the leader Chicago needs.
Themes
Barack arranges a luncheon for ministers and leaders and, at the end, he announces that he’s leaving. Everyone but Mary congratulates Barack; she asks why men always want more than they have. Barack walks her to her car and then returns to Will, who insists that Barack will be back. That Sunday, Barack wakes up early, puts on a suit, and goes to Trinity. Several people wave to him as he squeezes in between an elderly woman and a young family. Reverend Wright’s sermon is titled “The Audacity of Hope.” It’s a “meditation on a fallen world” and he insists they must keep hoping. People cry out and rise. Barack realizes that the church carries the stories of Black people forward and makes them accessible. As the choir sings, the boy next to Barack offers him a tissue. He didn’t realize he was crying.
Reverend Wright’s sermon impresses upon Barack that the Black church isn’t just about finding a community that looks like him and that faces some of the same struggles. Rather, the Black church preserves the stories of the Black struggle for freedom and dignity so that future generations can learn about them. In this way, this service brings together many of Barack’s big ideas. These stories will be able to help other young people find their way as the congregants build a sense of community with each other.
Themes
