Seven Days

In the discussion I helped lead on Tuesday, we did not have the time to cover one small part of chapter 10: Milkman finding out who the members of the Seven Days are.  Although not even a page is dedicated to this occurence, it struck me as very important regarding Milkman's emotions regarding his home.
To begin, Milkman lists the members as all belonging to the group that meets at the barbershop to discuss politics and race issues. People we have seen before in this book. People he has known all his life. Or has he truly known them? I think that Milkman feels betrayed by this discovery that the people he has ineracted with the longest (outside of his family) are murderers, whose cause he sees as unjust and irrational. He feels like a stranger in his hometown, a fact shown by his description of a handshake he had never seen before. When combined with the wecome her receives in Danville and the indifference, but later acceptance from the men of Shalimar (and one woman), Milkman truly begins to question where he belongs. Also contributing to his new desire to discover himself is how Lena tears him apart and tells him his time of being spoilt is over.
Another thing that came to my mind when reading about hwo was in the Seven Days was the discussion so many years ago about Emmitt Till. What Milkman had then understood to be an innocent discussion about the infairness of the law now becomes moch more serious to him. He realizes that they were discussing a murder that was actually going to happen. I think that even before his discussion with Lena, Milkman is beginning to become more serious. I think that before, he was oblivious to death. He knew what it was, even knew people who had died. But he did not understand that death was all around him (who he is, in fact). However, after seeing all the Seven Days together, he knows that his whole like has been lived surrounded by death. The people who he interacts with are either Dead or make people dead. This is a very sobering revelation for Milkman, and it is what prepares him to take Lena's words to heart.
So in a way, I think that while the mention of seeing the group together was very brief, it sets the stage for Milkman's change of character. It is the first step that prepares him for what Lena has to say, which in turn prepares him to break away from his father's commands and pursue the gold not for anyone, but to discover himself.