In this poem, the road represents the quest for Black identity. Black identity in the poem emerges in the context of the transatlantic slave trade and enslavement in the Americas. When Black Americans first entered the transatlantic slave trade, they had no idea of where they “were going” (Line 2). They had no sense of what their destination was because their literal movement was controlled by enslavers. They did not know who they would be at the end of their journey because they lost control over the power of self-definition. When someone like the speaker comes along and tells them who they are or could be, they disbelieve the speaker because they have yet to understand that they can take back the right to define themselves.

When Black Americans encounter the speaker again, they are “somewhere close” (Line 15) by the road because they have settled for how others have defined them. The last version of the addressee is one in which they are “dry, drowsy, all unwillingly a-wobble” (Line 21). They are on the path and only just awake. Their power of self-definition has been damaged by disuse, but they are on the road again, and ending there sounds a hopeful note for the Black Americans’ quest for identity.