In The Great Gatsby, which character is an African-American?

Question

I need to do an essay in school on who the book portrays non-nordic characters (The Jewish and African-Americans spacifically).

I know Wolfsheim was Jewish, but who was African-American?

Answer 1

There was a well-dressed black man who was a witness to Myrtle's car accident.

"What’s the name of this place here?” demanded the officer.

“Hasn’t got any name.”

A pale well-dressed ***** stepped near.

“It was a yellow car,” he said, “big yellow car. New.”

“See the accident?” asked the policeman.

“No, but the car passed me down the road, going faster’n forty. Going fifty, sixty.”

“Come here and let’s have your name. Look out now. I want to get his name.”
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzgerald/f_scott/gatsby/chapter7.html


The Queensboro Bridge:
"A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds, and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of southeastern Europe, and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby’s splendid car was included in their sombre holiday. As we crossed Blackwell’s Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry.

“Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge,” I thought; “anything at all. . . .”
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzgerald/f_scott/gatsby/chapter4.html

Answer 2

Okay, the guy who witnessed the accident was an African- American, as the one person said already.

Also, there is one point where Nick and Gatsby are driving and they go across a bridge, there is a limosine alongside them, with African-Americans in the backseat, being driven by a white driver.

And then there's the part in the beginning (chapter 1) when Tom talks about the book he's read: The Rise of the Colored Empires....and basically about how if white people don't step up, the minorities will take over the world. Yikes.

Answer 3

You might also want to note that there are several specific hints that Nick was gay. I know he was still nordic, but it places him in a non-majority sphere.