The Other Foot Summary & Analysis

Shocking news sweeps across the town, causing “the dark people” stare at the sky in anticipation. The news reaches towns thousands of miles away, and everyone “lift[s] their dark hands over their upturned white eyes” to block the harsh sunlight as they scan the skies.

Hattie Johnson’s children have heard the news as well. Hattie’s “three little Negro boys” jump up and down in the yard in anticipation, worried that their mother will “miss it.” Hattie asks her boys where they caught wind of this rumor, and they answer that they heard about it at the Jones’s house. Excitedly, one of the boys tells his mother, “They say a rocket’s coming, first one in twenty years, with a white man in it!” The other boy asks what a white man is, claiming he has never seen one before. Hattie tells her son that he will find out.

The children beg Hattie to tell them stories about white men. Frowning, Hattie says that “it’s been a long time. I was a little girl, you see. That was back in 1965.” Unsatisfied with this answer, the boys continue to beg Hattie to tell them about white men.

Hattie looks up at the “blue clear Martian sky” painted with “thin white Martian clouds.” On the horizon, the “Martian hills” look like they’re baking in the harsh sun. After a long pause, she tells her boys that white people have white hands. Her boys are incredulous. When she tells them that white people also have white arms and white faces, her boys holler in disbelief. The smallest boy throws dust on his face and asks, “White like this, Mom?” Solemnly, Hattie tells him that white people’s faces are even whiter. 

Hattie stares at the sky with worry. She tells the boys to go inside, but they object, claiming that they simply have to watch what is going on. The boys ask if anything will “happen,” and Hattie is unsure but says that she feels like something might. The boys say they just want to see the spaceship and see the white man. They ask again what the white man is like, and Hattie answers, “I don’t know, I just don’t know.”

Hattie tells her boys that white people live on Earth, which is where “we all come from.” Twenty years ago, she explains, people like them walked away from Earth and settled on Mars. As such, now they are “Martians instead of Earth people.” During those twenty years, no white men have come to Mars. 

Excitedly, the boys ask why the white men didn’t come up to Mars, too. Hattie answers that right after “we” got to Mars, the people on Earth engaged in a huge atomic war and forgot about those who had already left. After several years of a terrible atomic war, the people on Earth were left without any rockets. It took them until the present moment to be able to build one. Looking at her children “numbly,” Hattie tells the boys to stay at the house. Reluctantly they agree, and Hattie hurries down the road.

Approaching the Browns’ house, Hattie sees the family piled into the car. The Brown children greet Hattie and eagerly tell her that they’re going to see the white man. Mr. Brown adds that his children “never saw one, and I almost forgot.” Cautiously, Hattie asks Mr. Brown what he’s “going to do” with the white man. The Browns assure her that they’re just going to look at him. Hattie is surprised and says that she “thought there might be trouble.” When she asks the Browns if they’re planning to lynch the white man, Mr. Brown hollers with laughter, shouting, “Why, bless you, child, no! We’re going to shake his hand. Ain’t we, everyone?”

Hattie notices her husband Willie driving by and shouts for him. Angrily, he asks why she’s in this part of town and not at home with the kids. Willie glares at the Browns and asks them if they’re going to see the white man “like a bunch of fools.” Mr. Brown smiles and affirms that they are planning to do just that. Willie gruffly tells them to bring their guns, as he’s on his way home to grab his own.

Willie demands that Hattie get in his car and glares at her until she complies. As Willie races down the road, Hattie asks him to slow down. Driving even faster, Willie answers, “Not so fast, huh? We’ll see about that.” Willie asks why Earth people think they have the right to come to Mars, and why they didn’t “blow themselves up on that old world and let us be.” Hattie cautions her husband, pointing out that it’s not very Christian to talk like that. Sharply, Willie tells his wife that he’s “not feeling Christian.” He’s “just feeling mean.”

Willie asks Hattie if she remembers “what they did to our folks,” and how white people hung his father on Knockwood Hill and shot his mother. He asks if she’s “got a memory that’s short like the others,” but Hattie asserts that she remembers. Continuing his rant, Willie asks if Hattie remembers Dr. Phillips and Mr. Burton, white men who lived in big houses and were responsible for hanging Willie’s father. Wildly, Willie claims that “the shoe’s on the other foot now,” continuing, “We’ll see who gets laws passed against him, who gets lynched, who rides the back of streetcars, who gets segregated in shows.”

Hattie tells her husband that he’s “talking trouble,” but Willie dismisses her. He says that for years people have idly wondered what would happen if a white man came to Mars and now that the day has come they “can’t run away.” When Hattie asks if Willie is going to let the white people live on Mars, Willie says yes but his smile is cruel and his eyes are filled with anger. He claims that the white people can certainly come to Mars and work—that is, if they live in “the slums, and shine our shoes for us, and mop up our trash, and sit in the last row in the balcony.” Willie asserts this is a simple request, and adds that “once a week we hang one of two of them.” 

Hattie disapprovingly tells Willie that he doesn’t “sound human,” but he tells her to “get used to it.” Pulling up to their house, Willie commands her to find his guns and some rope so that they can “do this right.” Hattie doesn’t move. Crying, “Oh, Willie,” she sits in the car while her husband dashes wildly into the house.

Eventually, Hattie reluctantly goes into the house as well. Peering up into the dark attic, she can’t see Willie at all—she can only hear his swearing and see the “brutal metal” of the guns “glittering in the black attic.” When Willie climbs down from the attic, he’s coated in dust, and his face is “stern and heavy and folded in upon the gnawing bitterness there.” Hattie watches her husband muttering to himself, repeating the phrase “leave us alone” and madly flapping his arms. When Hattie tries to get Willie’s attention, he looks at her cruelly, and she feels as though she can sense the “pressure” of his hatred.

In the yard, Hattie’s boys chatter about the white man, saying that he is white like milk, chalk, and flowers. Willie “shove[s]” his children inside, telling them they won’t see and can’t talk about the white man. Before getting back into the car, Willie fetches paint, a stencil, and a rope, which he quickly ties into a noose.

Back on the road, Hattie tells Willie to “slow up,” but he refuses, insisting it is time to hurry. The road is lined with other people getting into cars and staring up at the sky. In many of the cars, guns “stick up […] like telescopes sighting all the evils of a world coming to an end.” Noticing the guns, Hattie blames her husband for “talking.” He says that he went to every house and told people to bring guns, paint, and rope, and to “be ready.” Gleefully, he says, “And here we all are, the welcoming committee, to give them a key to the city.”

As Willie navigates the throng of cars, Hattie feels anxiety and fear churning through her. People from other cars tote their ropes and guns, yelling, “Hey, Willie, look!” When the car comes to a halt in a field, Willie kicks the door open and begins unloading his weapons. Hattie tries to get Willie to stop and think about what he is doing, but he claims that he’s spent the last twenty years thinking. He says that when he left Earth at sixteen, he was happy to leave, because “there wasn’t anything there for me or you or anybody like us.” He says that they’ve had peace on Mars, which allowed them to draw “a solid breath” for the first time.

A crowd surrounds Willie and asks what to do. Willie begins passing out weapons, and the crowd is so dense that it looks “like one dark body with a thousand arms reaching out to take the weapons.” Everyone chants Willie’s name. Hattie, however, stands silently next to her husband and cries. Willie commands her to bring him a gallon of paint, and she complies.

A trolley car pulls up. Fastened to its front is a freshly-painted sign reading, “To the White Man’s Landing.” Crowds of people pour out of the trolley car, including women carrying picnic baskets and men wearing straw hats. Climbing into the empty trolley, Willie begins to paint. The conductor objects, but when he sees that Willie has painted “For Whites: Rear Section,” the conductor smiles and says, “That suits me just fine, sir.”

Returning to the growing crowd, Willie climbs onto packing boxes and asks for volunteers to paint streetcars and rope off theater seats (“the last two rows for whites”). Several people run off toward the town to complete their assigned tasks. Willie then calls for a new law to be passed banning intermarriages between races and commands the shoeshine boys to quit their jobs. Willie says that the town needs a minimum wage law, too—ten cents an hour for white people.

Hurrying toward Willie, the town’s mayor demands he climb down off of the boxes and asserts that Willie is forming a mob. Willie simply replies, “That’s the idea.” The mayor tells Willie that he’s “no better than some of those white men you yell about.” Willie objects, claiming, “This is the other shoe, Mayor, and the other foot.” When the mayor threatens Willie, Willie calls for an election to get a new mayor.

Willie looks toward the town, where people are hanging freshly-painted signs reading, “Limited Clientele: Right to serve customer revokable [sic] at any time.” The “chuckling men” bustle through town, roping off theater seats and painting streetcar seats white. Meanwhile, their wives stand on the curb silently and their children are “hid[den] away from this awful time.”

Holding the rope tied into a noose, Willie addresses the crowd and asks if they’re ready. Half of the crowd eagerly calls back, “Ready!” The other half whispers “like figures in a nightmare in which they wished no participation.”

A young boy shouts that the rocket ship is approaching, and “like marionette heads on a single string, the heads of the crowd turn upward.” As the rocket swoops down to Mars, the crowd gasps. Suddenly, the rocket’s large door slides open, and a tired-looking old white man steps out. The crowd begins to murmur, “A white man, a white man, a white man…”

The white man is tall and frail. His eyes are “colorless, almost white and sightless with things he had seen in the passing years.” He extends a shaky hand in greeting and “half smile[s]” but then quickly puts his hand down. The crowd is motionless. Looking into the crowd, the white man “did not see the guns and the ropes.”

Addressing the crowd, the old man says that he will not offer his name, as it doesn’t really matter who he is. He says that twenty years ago (which feels “more like twenty centuries” ago), when the Martians left Earth, war broke out. He calls the war “The Third One,” and says that it went on until last year. All of the major cities are gone, including New York, Paris, London, and Shanghai. Even small cities have been demolished—including Greenwater, Alabama. Upon hearing this, Willie’s jaw drops.

The old man continues, saying that the cotton fields have all burned, the cotton mills have been bombed, and the factories are radioactive. Everything is radioactive in fact—even roads and food. He lists more towns that have been destroyed, and people in the crowd whisper in shock when they hear that their hometowns have been demolished. A wave of nostalgia overtakes the crowd as they think of the places that were once so familiar to them having been reduced to rubble.

The white man tells the crowd that “we destroyed everything and ruined everything, like the fools that we were and the fools that we are.” Millions of people are dead, and now there are only five hundred thousand people left on Earth. The destruction is so severe, that they could only find enough metal to make this one rocket so that they could come to Mars to find help.

Willie tenses and his fingers tighten around his rope. The old man repeats, “We’ve been fools.” He says that none of the cities can be saved, as everything will be radioactive for at least the next century. He points out that the Martians have lots of rockets, which they used to get to Mars twenty years prior. He asks for permission to use the rockets to bring the survivors from Earth to Mars.

The old man says that Earth people have been “stupid,” and they admit their evilness “before God.” On behalf of the Americans, the British, the Russians, the Indians, and the Chinese, he asks the Martians to take the Earth people in. He knows that there’s room for everyone on Mars, and he’s seen from above that the soil is fertile. He asserts that it is up to the Martians, though. If they want, he will get back into his rocket ship and never come back. On the other hand, if the Martians allow the Earth people to come live with them, the white man says Earth people will do all the things they once forced black people to do.

The silence of the crowd feels “like a pressure of a distant storm.” Many people watch Willie, who is still holding the rope. Hattie holds her husband’s arm and waits. She wants to extract the hate from everyone in the crowd, “to pry at it and work at it until she found a little chink, and then pull out a pebble or a stone or a brick” so that “the whole edifice might roar down and be done away with.” She knows that the crowd’s hatred is “teetering,” but she can’t figure out what is the “keystone” that will make everyone abandon their hate for good.

Suddenly, Hattie realizes that Willie is the “keystone,” and “if he could be pried loose,” then maybe everyone’s hatred will fall away, too. Stepping forward from the silent crowd, Hattie asks the old man about Knockwood Hill in Greenwater, Alabama. Someone in the rocket ship hands the old man a map. Hattie asks if the big oak on the top of the hill is still there, and the old man says both the tree and the hill are gone. He holds out a photograph, which Willie gruffly asks to see.

With her heart pounding, Hattie asks the old man if Dr. Phillips and his son are still alive. A machine clicks within the rocket, and the old man confirms that Dr. Phillips and his son both died in the war. Their house also burned down, just like all the other houses. When Hattie asks about the other big tree on Knockwood Hill, the old man affirms that all of the trees were destroyed. Willie speaks up, asking, “That tree went, you’re sure?” When the man confirms, Willie’s body loosens.

Willie asks about Mr. Burton and his house, and the old man says that no people or homes are left in Greenwater. Willie then asks about his mother’s washing shack—where she was shot—and the old man says that the shack is gone, too. He passes out pictures to the crowd: “The pictures were there to be held and looked at and thought about.” The entire rocket is full of pictures to answer questions about any place on Earth.

With the rope still in his hands, Willie thinks about the Earth that he knew, “the green Earth and the green town where he was born and raised.” He thinks about how everything has been destroyed, and “all of the supposed or certain evil scattered with it.” He thinks about “all of the hard men gone,” as well as the soda fountains, cows, roads, plantation homes, bars, and “lynching trees.” All of this is “gone and never coming back.” The entire civilization has been “ripped into confetti and strewn at their feet,” and now there is “nothing of it left to hate.” He thinks the only thing left to hate is a group of alien people “who might shine his shoes and ride in the back of trolleys or sit far up in midnight theaters…”

Willie loosens his fingers, and the rope drops to the ground. He tells the white man that Earth people won’t have to work for Martians. With these words, the Martians run through the town, tearing down their newly installed signs and cutting down the ropes in the theaters.

In the car on the way home, Hattie affirms that this will be “A new start for everyone.” After a while, Willie answers that God allowed them to come to Mars, and that “what happens next is up to all of us. The time for being fools is over.” He explains that when the white man was addressing the crowd, Willie realized that white people have now experienced the loneliness and homelessness that the Martians used to feel on Earth. Because of that, everyone is now equal and “on the same level.”

At home, Willie sits in the car while Hattie lets the boys out of the house. The children run out to their father asking if he saw the white man, and Willie responds, “Yes sir […] Seems like for the first time today I really seen the white man—I really seen him clear.”