The author notes, “A fellow Supreme Court justice said of Marshall, ‘No American did more to lead our country out of the wildern
ess of segregation.’” Look up the word wilderness in the dictionary. Why is segregation described as a wilderness? Could you say that all injustice is a wilderness? Explain your answer.
Segregation was described as wilderness as a way of indicating the inhumaneness of this treatment, for literally wilderness indicates a place without civilization or society.
Injustice is not always a wilderness, although it sometimes can be. Injustice acts within established society all the time -- sometimes, de jury, it can be under the guise of a law-abiding action, but in reality (de facto) it could be injustice. For example, Donald's Trump urge to deport and restrict immigrants from certain countries reflects injustice in an established environment (in my opinion, of course).
In the slave societies of the Americas, a quadroon or quarteron was a person with one quarter African and three quarters European ancestry (or in Australia, one quarter aboriginal ancestry).
Okonkwo doesn't truly change during the novel. As others in the village drift toward the church during his banishment, he is in his mother's land working to get back to where and how he was.
