Important Passage that Relates to the Character

Excerpts from pgs. 125-126

"There were signs brooding looks from my mother, Betty's way of speaking softly to me as though I was an invalid, and most startling, the change in Aunt Agatha who treated me now with affection and never called me a bayou lout..."
"I was back in my life, but I was not the same. When I passed a black man, I often turned to look at him, trying to see in his walk the man he had once been before he'd been driven through the dangerous heaving surf to a long boat, toppled into it, chained, brought to a waiting ship all narrowed and stripped for speed, carried, through storms, and the bitter brightness of sun-filled days to a place, where if he had survived, he would be sold like cloth..."
"At first, I made a promise to myself: I would do nothing that was connected ever so faintly with the importing and sale and use of slaves. But I soon discovered that everything I considered bore, somewhere along the way, the imprint of black hands..."

These passages from pages 125 and 126 of The Slave Dancer are important to consider because they illustrate the profound impacts the slave ship experiences have had on Jesse and also the effects of how his changes and growth affect everybody else. In many ways, the maturation and realizations that he has achieved cause him to think at a higher degree compared to when he was still a young and innocent boy before The Moonlight. These passages give examples on how Jesse's course of thought changes from sheltered to mature and the fact that he is still haunted by the memories of the slaves, the profound effects the experiences has had on his morals, the way he thinks about things in a way he has never considered before, and finally being the new person he is.