Alone with a Butterfly

“Alone with a Butterfly” is about the White and Black situation as it existed in 1951, in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx where a benign segregation between whites and blacks is considered normal, especially by sixteen-yea-old Freed Messina and his girlfriend. In Freddy’s neighborhood the blacks, who hold good city jobs, live solely in an apartment building called the Colored House by the white neighbors. A sixteen-year-old black boy, Willy Hamilton, lives in the Colored House with Carol, his fifteen-year-old pretty sister. She is a superb artist and suffers from congenital illness that often weaken her so that she must rest. Willy is the only black boy in Freddy’s class at Hunts Point High School. Despite fearing ridicule by his friends and strong disapproval from his father for associating with blacks, Freddy becomes friendly with Willy and Carol. He is enthralled with her beauty and the magnificence of her paintings. Freddy and Carol like each other. Since Carol doesn’t go to school and must remain home all the time, she feels alone. But because of Freddy’s interest in her, she doesn’t feel alone anymore.