The First Ladies

Black roses symbolize of Black rights, equality, education, and growth. Mary give each Bethune-Cookman College student a black rose at their graduation ceremony to recognize and celebrate their academic accomplishments: “I’ve started calling my students Black Roses and giving each a fully bloomed rose at graduation. This is my gift, a reminder to each that they are equal in beauty and stature to every other rose, no matter the color” (113). With these roses, Mary conveys to each young graduate that their accomplishments are equal to the academic accomplishments of anyone else. The campus is full of black rose bushes, and roses come up often in the text—including the White House rose gardens. In a later scene, Eleanor agrees with Mary to plant black roses in the presidential gardens, furthering this symbolic measure to show that black roses, just like Black people, are equally stunning and worthy of the same care and regard as any other rose. With these flowers, Mary hopes her students will continue to know their worth and keep growing as intelligent, powerful young women.

The art exhibit of pieces centered on lynching reveal the viciousness and inhumanity of racism when taken to its extreme conclusion. Walter White intended the gallery visitors to be moved by the artwork because it put faces and personalities to both the victims and the perpetrators.