The Black teen Alfred Brooks takes up this activity under the mentorship of Mr. Donatelli in a novel by Robert Lipsyte. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this activity that the protagonist engages in while blindfolded in a novel’s opening chapter, before a scramble on an electrified rug for fake coins.
ANSWER: boxing [accept fighting or prizefighting; accept battle royale or brawling] (Lipsyte’s novel is The Contender, and the latter novel is Invisible Man.)
[10h] In this novel, the Black teen Griff is killed for failing to throw a boxing match. At the end of this novel, one of the two protagonists is killed during an attempted escape, after which the other adopts his name and identity.
ANSWER: The Nickel Boys (by Colson Whitehead)
[10e] The Black residents of Stamps, Arkansas all crowd around a radio in Momma’s store to listen to a Joe Louis boxing match in a scene from this author’s memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
ANSWER: Maya Angelou [or Marguerite Annie Johnson]
<Yale A, American Literature>