No price can be payed for First Class

In the North, Linda is completely thrown off by how different it is than her expectations. She imagined a land where a black could walk down the street feeling happy, independent and equal, without only his or herself to worry about. Well she was brutally wrong. Sure, whites didn't own the blacks, and the blacks weren't property. The blacks could vote, own land, pay taxes, have a paying job, go to school and all that jazz, but really, they weren't equal at all. Segregation still plagued the north. In a way, the segregation of the north during the mid 19th century was very similar to the serration in the south 100 years later in the mid 20th century. Linda's daughter, Ellen, was still basically "property" working as a maid and house servant for an old lady. Linda also experienced racial divide when she tried to get a nice first class ticket for the train ride from Philly to New York. The guy who was hooking her up and helping her out bought her a train ticket and told her he couldn't get her a first class seat. Instantly she pulled out more money and told him he could afford it, but instead he said, that this was all he could get for her, due to her race. Blacks could not ride on the first class train, so instead Linda had to ride on the train full of foreign smokers and baby holders. It was smelly inside the train box and was suffocating. This made Linda mad because she could ride like this for free in the south, instead of paying for it, and it also made her mad because she could afford to ride first class. She could afford to get out of the situation she was in, but her skin color would not allow for it. Just because she had a dark sun tan meant that she could never, ever, ride in first class. I think it's ironic....