The next day, while walking in the streets of Harlem, the narrator buys a hot buttered yam from a street vendor and eats it greedily. No longer feeling compelled to hide his identity as a Southern black by denying his love for certain foods, the narrator experiences a profound sense of freedom. Pondering the link between food and identity, he imagines exposing Dr. Bledsoe as "a shameless chitterling eater," then runs back to the vendor and buys two more yams, but discovers that the last one is frostbitten.
Continuing on, the narrator comes upon the scene of an eviction. Two white men bring a chest of drawers out of a nearby apartment while a group of black men and women stand silently by and an old black woman tearfully calls the narrator's attention to her helplessness and humiliation. Feeling uncomfortable, the narrator tries to blend into the crowd of bystanders. Oblivious to the pleas of her husband, who has appeared on the scene to comfort her, the woman loudly denounces the men who are literally tearing her home apart.
