In Nettie’s next letter, we find she has begun writing to Celie in the same desperate sense that Celie wrote to God. She reveals that the reason she is in Africa is because one of the other women scheduled to go leased her ticket after her husband prohibited her from going. Nostalgically, Nettie remembers what she learnt at school about Africa, and recalls her last visit to town, seeing a woman we know as Sofia there as Miss Millie’s maid. Nettie reads fervently about Africa, and realises how little she actually knew.

Nettie retells her last days in America. Adorned in her new clothes bought by Corrine, the missionaries leave their church group for New York City. As they get set to ride on the train they encounter some unfavourable comments from a man on the platform, though this is contrasted against the good-hearted people of Harlem, who are very well dressed and extremely charitable towards Africa. From there, Nettie, Corrine and Samuel et al witness the pompous nature of the missionary society and leave dejected and depressed by the paintings of white people on the walls.

Nettie begins letter fifty-seven with a description of Samuel, a tall black man who is both "thoughtful and gentle." They leave for Africa on a ship called the Malaga, stopping at Southampton, Lisbon and Dakar. While in England, Nettie begins to learn about racial history, and visits a museum after having "tea." She ponders on her ancestors’ motives for selling their people into slavery and realises why Africa is such a weak continent. Nettie retells her experiences in Dakar, Senegal where the people look like royalty. While they are there they are invited to the presidential palace, where the president seems everything but involved in his people’s problems. Despite what he says, Nettie and Corrine notice how industrious the women are on the cocoa plantations.

Back in Georgia Celie still has a vendetta against Albert, though Shug Avery convinces her not to kill him. Sleeping together, Celie’s emotional deadness returns with Shug. To take her mind off her desires to exact revenge from Albert, the two women begin making pants. Though incredulous to begin with, Celie soon realises that sewing pants is a way of ridding herself of Albert’s tyranny.