Arriving at Liberty Paints, the narrator is greeted by a large electric sign that reads “Keep America Pure with Liberty Paints.” After a brief interview with the personnel manager, he is assigned to work for a Mr. Kimbro, referred to by his employees as “the colonel” and “slave driver.” As an office boy escorts him to Kimbro’s office, located in a building with a pure white hall, the narrator learns that the factory makes paint for the government and that he is one of six “colored college boys” hired to replace union workers out on strike.
This ominous overview of the narrator’s work environment foreshadows the disastrous events of the rest of his day, which turns into a virtual nightmare as the narrator has conflicts with both Kimbro and his second supervisor, Lucius Brockway, a black man who maintains the factory’s boilers in the basement. A long-time employee of Liberty Paints, Brockway helped create the company’s slogan, “If It’s Optic White, It’s the Right White.” The narrator’s confrontation with Brockway escalates into a physical fight, during which the narrator knocks out the old man’s false teeth. To retaliate, Brockway rigs the boilers to explode, sending the narrator to the factory hospital.
At the hospital, the narrator is subjected to a painful series of electric shocks, which leave him feeling strangely disconnected from his body and unable to express his anger and indignation. Finally, the doctors release him, declare him “cured,” and take him three floors down to see the hospital director. The director tells the narrator that he is not “prepared for work under . . . industrial conditions,” asks him to sign a release form absolving the company of any responsibility for his injuries, and assures him that he will be compensated later.
Disoriented and confused, the narrator finds his way back to the subway and returns to Harlem, where he is taken in by a kindly black woman named Mary Rambo, who nurtures him back to health.
