The Ghost Train Sparknotes

Jess Mowry’s book, The Ghost Train, shows that racism was a big problem back in the 1940s, and although it’s decreased, it is still present in today’s society. Remi Du Mont and Niya Bedford are two African American kids living in a very rough area of Oakland, California. They take a journey back in time fifty years, where they learn the difficulties that Black Americans faced throughout history.

Remi is a Haitian refugee that moved to Oakland because his father taught at the University of California, Berkeley. I’m really impressed with this character because he’s very well rounded and quickly learned that the amenities of America were much better than his home country of Haiti. For instance, in America, Nike shoes were common, but seldom, if ever, seen in Haiti. What seems rich to him seems poor to his American classmates. He and his downstairs neighbor, the street smart, Niya, faced racism daily, as evidenced by the “uncaring and cold” faces they see from Caucasian store owners, soldiers, and policemen. Through their journey, however, they realized how far civil rights have come since the 1940s.

A horrified Remi witnesses unjust acts, such as the murder of their landlord’s husband. After confiding to his friend, Niya says, “Yo, Remi! Get a clue! I don’t know what the laws are like where you come from, but this’s America! Cops don’t care about dead black people today! What you figure they gonna do “bout some poor brutha gettin’ capped fifty years ago?”(pg 131) This shows the racial tensions and the terrible inequalities that exist during the time. This is very disturbing to Remi, being newly arrived from Haiti. It becomes obvious to them that the civil rights, in their day, have come a long way, although they still have much further to go for equality to be