" (Welty A Worn Path) This statement seems to be referring how people of color go up against to achieve equality in a very imbalanced world years after the release of slaves and civil war as if they should have continued to be slaves. From the beginning, it can be implied that even the issue of race gets in between how Phoenix portrays herself and how she feels about slavery. It almost seems as if she is tired to face the issue of how racism plays a part in how people treat her. Consequentially, Phoenix metaphorically confronts the struggles African American face due to their race by going through her journey.
The journey signifies how colored people struggled and how they continue to battle through to get equality. The barriers that she confronts in her journey could have occurred to anybody, but Welty aims to show that racism is the reason for her struggle. .
Subsequently, as Phoenix Jackson's encounters with other characters their perceptions exhibit a theme of race inequality even though it is after the civil war. Her first encounter of someone teasing her based on her ethnicity is with the white hunter. Even though the white hunter helped her out of the ditch he does denigrate her and bashes the reason of her voyage by laughing and saying ""I know you old colored people! Wouldn't miss going to town to see Santa Claus!"(Welty A Worn Path). He also tries to bully and/ or intimidate her by directing his loaded gun at her and inquiring, "Doesn't the gun scare you?" (Welty A Worn Path). The white hunter assumes that he has the right to point a gun at her based on custom or the past. However, she does not seem to care or flinch, telling the hunter she has seen "plenty [of guns] go off closer by, in my day." (Welty A Worn Path). The allegation is that she has seen racial violence during her lifetime and she is not afraid to face it.
As a result to all the racism that colored people have had to endure, Welty symbolically demonstrates that through the determination of Phoenix.