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Fonny, Tish’s partner and the book’s secondary narrator, is a proud man who struggles throughout the story to find a way to live freely despite the racist oppression of American society. As a young child, his pride leads him to fight with his peers, but by the time he is a teenager, he directs his energy instead against the systems that seek to control his mind and body. He drops out of vocational school because it is designed to break the spirits of its students, teaching them to act like slaves. Instead, he steals wood from the school and turns it into art, an example of his pride leading him to reject social control in favor of independence and creation. His art gives him focus and saves him from the literal and spiritual deaths his peers face from drugs, alcohol, and violent crime. Even when he is in jail, he finds the strength to stand against the racist system, raising his fist in a Black Power salute when Tish leaves their visits. Fonny’s pride seems to invite Officer Bell’s retribution, but Daniel’s experience shows that the police do not need a reason to falsely accuse a Black man of a crime. Fonny’s pride is what keeps his soul alive.
