The Closing Border

The story that I was assigned from the Harlem Renaissance Reader was Grimke's "The Closing Door". I think that this story has a relevant place in the borders literature class. This is because the central theme concerns the borders that engulf oppressed people, and the consequences that can come from crossing them.
The basic details of the plot go as follows: A black, pregnant woman named Agnes eagerly waits for new from brother Bob. However, all she receives is a note saying that he died suddenly. Agnes's brother Joe comes up instead, and tells them the story of how Bob died. Apparently, he refused to move for a white man, and a fight ensued which Bob won. He was then lynched. Agnes learns of this, and goes into a severe depression. She has her baby, but is unable to care for it since it will grow up in a world that tolerates lynching. So she kills the baby.
This story shows how dangerous crossing borders can be. Bob was living in the South, under a system with a very definite border which separated acceptable and unacceptable actions on the part of black people. When Bob decided to cross the border, he was gruesomely murdered for his transgression. His sister Agnes sees this as evidence of the insurmountable odds faced by blacks in America. The 'closing door' is indeed just another border which she feels that her son will not be able to cross.
This is important in the context of the class because we often talk about how crossing borders is such a good thing. I think we may tend to disregard the fact that, right or wrong, crossing borders can have very dire consequences.