Question

One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. What is the literal meaning of this figurative sentence from the passage?

Answer 1

The literal meaning of this passage is that there is a State which is predominantly inhabited by Negro people. This state is an island and it is located in a region which offers many resources that these people could exploit in order to get out of poverty. These resources include the ones located in the sea, as well as the beaches that this island was that could be used as touristic spots.

Answer 2

it's saying that an African American lives alone on an island where they all the inhabitants have little money in the middle of the ocean (far away from the Cacasian people on the main land) and the only way to get money is through physical labor.