"Well you know whut dey say 'uh white man and uh nigger woman is de freest thing on earth.' Dey do as dey please." Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937
             This anonymously voiced sentence (end of Chapter 19), accompanied by the few sentences before it, encapsulates Janie Wood's life. It echoes the opening sentence, "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board." Who owns these ships? What are they carrying? A slave ship? How is it that the black woman is as free as a white man is? Janie Woods, like the white man, reaches for the horizon. Janie, like the white man, attains the horizon. Janie is the horizon. This anonymous statement gives power to Janie. Janie, as far as the men on the porch are concerned, is as free as a white man is. She does as she pleases.
             "So she was free and the judge and everybody up there smiled with her and shook her hand."(179) She was free. Free like a white man. The word free, in the context of the south, has a deep meaning. A meaning far more complex than an acquittal. It is a freedom from slavery. It is a freedom of imprisonment. It is a freedom of spirit. Janie is free. Janie's freedom encompasses more than just a freedom from a jailhouse- it is spiritual freedom. This freedom misinterpreted by her true jury, her fellow African-American's, lessens the impact of her freedom. It does however bolster her position as a free woman. The fact that her freedom is recognized by the "men on the porch" only serves to strengthen Janie.
             This misinterpretation solidifies, in the mind of the Negroes, when the White women in the court surround Janie after the jury proclaims her innocence. The Negroes do nothing to hide their disgust. They walk out with their heads hung low. This movement in the courthouse of White women surrounding Janie after her acquittal is all the evidence the Negro communit...