Joslyn Barnes

During a segregated boxing match at the Nickel Academy, Elwood and Turner observe the high-stakes gambling and racial tensions simmering in the crowd. As they watch their peer Griff fight a white opponent, they realize the match is a rigged spectacle where the boys' lives are merely currency for the staff's amusement. The scene highlights the contrast between the boys' desperate hope and the systemic corruption of the reform school.

A grieving grandmother, Hattie, descends into a traumatic memory of racial injustice while preparing a cake for her grandson, Elwood. She grapples with the cycle of systemic violence that has claimed the men in her family and pleads with God to spare Elwood from the same fate.