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Ragazzo negro
Un racconto aggrappato alla realtà, "vissuto alla giornata": la lenta maturazione d'un giovane solo e arrabbiato, avido di conoscere, affamato di parole e di libri. "Ragazzo negro", quasi un romanzo di formazione, è l'autobiografia simbolica di Richard Wright, scrittore negro nativo delMississippi, dapprima sguattero, spazzino, spalatore, poi impiegato alle poste, agente di assicurazioni, disoccupato, infine narratore di brevi racconti pagati pochi dollari a cartella. L'esperienza di vivere nelle cose, scoprire le parole come arma di liberazione: il coraggio di progettare la propria esistenza proiettandola verso il viaggio dell'utopia come scelta d'una fuga che non è più passiva sconfitta.
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Edizione priva di ISBN
Edition without ISBN
Edición sin ISBN
340 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1945
1,833 people are currently reading
44.7k people want to read
About the author
Richard Wright
313books2,106followersRichard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of powerful, sometimes controversial novels, short stories and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerned racial themes. His work helped redefine discussions of race relations in America in the mid-20th century.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,506 reviews
December 9, 2024
Gems sometimes come from unexpected places such as Richard Wright’s autobiography/novel Black Boy.
I decided to read this because I discovered a free literature course named The American Novel since 1945 from Open Yale and it was the first title discussed. If interested in the course check this link: .
I have to admit that I did not know much about the author (he seems to be famous in the US) and I was not so keen about reading this book even after watching the introduction made by the course teacher. I was increasingly surprised when pages started to fly and I found myself totally immersed in Richard Wright’s childhood as a poor black boy in the South at the end of WW1.
That was a horrible time for an intelligent and curios black boy to be alive and try to accomplish his dream of telling stories. Even though slavery was abolished, black people were treated not much better than animals by the white folks. His curiosity and his love for books made him suffer endless beatings and the wrath of his family. Moreover, His honest and straight-forward manner created conflicts with the whites. He slowly learned to control his feelings and put all his strengths in finding a way to escape to the North.
I did not feel like the author was trying to make us feel pity for his childhood. The intent was more to present the facts as they were, how life was back then for a black boy. His intention is supported by the name of the book, Black boy. A generic name that can let us imagine that his experience is the experience of many of the black boys from that period. In the beginning of the review I said this is an autobiography/novel because there are many voices/proofs that contest the reality of some of the facts presented in the autobiography. It appears that some adventures were copied from other children’s experiences and some of the events happened differently than pictured here. That comes to support the idea that he wanted his autobiography to be generic.
I decided to read this because I discovered a free literature course named The American Novel since 1945 from Open Yale and it was the first title discussed. If interested in the course check this link: .
I have to admit that I did not know much about the author (he seems to be famous in the US) and I was not so keen about reading this book even after watching the introduction made by the course teacher. I was increasingly surprised when pages started to fly and I found myself totally immersed in Richard Wright’s childhood as a poor black boy in the South at the end of WW1.
That was a horrible time for an intelligent and curios black boy to be alive and try to accomplish his dream of telling stories. Even though slavery was abolished, black people were treated not much better than animals by the white folks. His curiosity and his love for books made him suffer endless beatings and the wrath of his family. Moreover, His honest and straight-forward manner created conflicts with the whites. He slowly learned to control his feelings and put all his strengths in finding a way to escape to the North.
I did not feel like the author was trying to make us feel pity for his childhood. The intent was more to present the facts as they were, how life was back then for a black boy. His intention is supported by the name of the book, Black boy. A generic name that can let us imagine that his experience is the experience of many of the black boys from that period. In the beginning of the review I said this is an autobiography/novel because there are many voices/proofs that contest the reality of some of the facts presented in the autobiography. It appears that some adventures were copied from other children’s experiences and some of the events happened differently than pictured here. That comes to support the idea that he wanted his autobiography to be generic.
March 12, 2024
Who doesn’t love a bit of controversy, scandal, and the FBI?!?!
Around 1944, Richard Wright wrote an autobiography containing two parts: the first covers his childhood as a black boy growing up in the South (of the United States) and the second part covers his time in Chicago and his foray into Communism.
Book-of-the-Month (“BOTM�), yes that BOTM with those monthly blue subscription boxes, was interested in Wright’s book, but they only wanted the first part (about growing up in the South).
On July 1, 1944, the editor of BOTM, Dorothy Canfield Fisher asked Wright if he would consider making the ending a bit more hopeful to essentially make white people feel happy that some of their efforts towards racial equality were working. Totally cringy reading that in 2024. Keep in mind the US still had segregation of its troops at this time, and the “I Have a Dream� speech would not occur until 1963. On July 6, Wright says no, explaining that hopeful isn’t how he feels. On July 12, Canfield Fisher writes, “You certainly are the best judge. Whatever you decide to do, I’ll accept without question.� The next letter is July 20 from Wright stating that his book was accepted by BOTM.
Based on my reading of the correspondence, Wright initially rebuffed a hopeful ending. After giving it additional thought, he decided that he could rework the ending. Additionally, the original book does oscillate between hope and despair, and this edited ending would keep with that theme.
There is also additional controversy because this book was promoted as autobiography; however, after initial publication, it was discovered that some of these things did not happen to Richard Wright—some of them happened to other people or didn’t unfold the way Wright portrayed them.
So what is my take?
Part 1 of the book is definitely stronger; although, the narrative voice is a bit lacking. Most of Part 1 is based on short dialogue and action, jumping from one shocking plot device to the next without learning much of Richard’s thoughts and dreams. Additionally, a 300-page book is much easier to sell than a 550- page book.
As far as the ending is concerned, the BOTM ending is lackluster, and it feels tacked on at the end. It isn’t even written in the same style as the rest of the book—it is four pages of longer paragraphs with unremarkable internal musings, and Wright had every reason to dislike the ending.
Part 2 of the book is boring. It primarily focused on Wright’s attempts to join and promote the Communist party. But, let’s face it, politics are usually boring, and this part of the book was repetitive. Moreover, if you look at books that brought about great social change such as Oliver Twist which dealt with impoverished children, Dickens merely shined a light on the problem; he didn’t go into specifics about how to solve it. But Oliver Twist moved the country to enact child labor laws.
By throwing in something ultra controversial, Communism would have been the talking point, overshadowing all of Wright’s other topics.
Plus�..um�.the CIA and FBI were keeping tabs on Richard Wright since 1943. McCarthyism was occurring right at this time in US history where anyone even suspected of Communist sympathies could be rounded up.
If you are interested in viewing Wright’s FBI file:
This book was read as part of Yale’s The American Novel Since 1945. If you would like to join in on the discussion, there is still time to take part in the group!
How much I spent:
1945 BOTM Hardcover Text - $12 on eBay
1993 Black Boy The Restored Text Softcover - $5.25 on Amazon
Audiobook � Free with paid Everand subscription $84.99 annually
Connect With Me!
Around 1944, Richard Wright wrote an autobiography containing two parts: the first covers his childhood as a black boy growing up in the South (of the United States) and the second part covers his time in Chicago and his foray into Communism.
Book-of-the-Month (“BOTM�), yes that BOTM with those monthly blue subscription boxes, was interested in Wright’s book, but they only wanted the first part (about growing up in the South).
On July 1, 1944, the editor of BOTM, Dorothy Canfield Fisher asked Wright if he would consider making the ending a bit more hopeful to essentially make white people feel happy that some of their efforts towards racial equality were working. Totally cringy reading that in 2024. Keep in mind the US still had segregation of its troops at this time, and the “I Have a Dream� speech would not occur until 1963. On July 6, Wright says no, explaining that hopeful isn’t how he feels. On July 12, Canfield Fisher writes, “You certainly are the best judge. Whatever you decide to do, I’ll accept without question.� The next letter is July 20 from Wright stating that his book was accepted by BOTM.
Based on my reading of the correspondence, Wright initially rebuffed a hopeful ending. After giving it additional thought, he decided that he could rework the ending. Additionally, the original book does oscillate between hope and despair, and this edited ending would keep with that theme.
There is also additional controversy because this book was promoted as autobiography; however, after initial publication, it was discovered that some of these things did not happen to Richard Wright—some of them happened to other people or didn’t unfold the way Wright portrayed them.
So what is my take?
Part 1 of the book is definitely stronger; although, the narrative voice is a bit lacking. Most of Part 1 is based on short dialogue and action, jumping from one shocking plot device to the next without learning much of Richard’s thoughts and dreams. Additionally, a 300-page book is much easier to sell than a 550- page book.
As far as the ending is concerned, the BOTM ending is lackluster, and it feels tacked on at the end. It isn’t even written in the same style as the rest of the book—it is four pages of longer paragraphs with unremarkable internal musings, and Wright had every reason to dislike the ending.
Part 2 of the book is boring. It primarily focused on Wright’s attempts to join and promote the Communist party. But, let’s face it, politics are usually boring, and this part of the book was repetitive. Moreover, if you look at books that brought about great social change such as Oliver Twist which dealt with impoverished children, Dickens merely shined a light on the problem; he didn’t go into specifics about how to solve it. But Oliver Twist moved the country to enact child labor laws.
By throwing in something ultra controversial, Communism would have been the talking point, overshadowing all of Wright’s other topics.
Plus�..um�.the CIA and FBI were keeping tabs on Richard Wright since 1943. McCarthyism was occurring right at this time in US history where anyone even suspected of Communist sympathies could be rounded up.
If you are interested in viewing Wright’s FBI file:
This book was read as part of Yale’s The American Novel Since 1945. If you would like to join in on the discussion, there is still time to take part in the group!
How much I spent:
1945 BOTM Hardcover Text - $12 on eBay
1993 Black Boy The Restored Text Softcover - $5.25 on Amazon
Audiobook � Free with paid Everand subscription $84.99 annually
Connect With Me!
February 17, 2022
Hunger. Humiliation. Hate. Hurt.
How to describe the life of a poor, uneducated boy in the Jim Crow South between the world wars? Possibly, he would have led a less vulnerable life, had he been able to tune out his intelligence and his sensitivity. Possibly, he would have fared better if he hadn't been born to see human beings beyond the colour of their skin and their power to hurt. But he was born free, and therefore a target.
A target in his own family, where he was punished for his lack of submission to the demeaning rituals of religion:
"This business of saving souls had no ethics; every human relationship was shamelessly exploited. In essence, the tribe was asking us whether we shared its feelings; if we refused to join the church, it was equivalent to saying no, to placing ourselves in the position of moral monsters."
The hierarchy of religious submission, kept in place by emotional blackmail, is mirrored in the "god-given" segregation and exploitation of African Americans by white supremacists on all levels of interaction. Keep your head down, smile and bow to the white population, and you may be spared, if you are lucky. Show a white person that you do not believe in their right to mistreat you, and you will be lynched.
Even if you submit physically to the commands of your tribe and of the white community, it is not enough. Walking upright and thinking for yourself is a danger in itself, even if you stick to the rules. As Orwell put it: you have to LOVE Big Brother.
"Thou shalt not think!"
That is the commandment that Richard Wright learns as a beaten, hungry, neglected child. You can kill and steal and drink and cheat, but you cannot think. Thinking - or putting thoughts on paper, or taking help from books to further develop thinking skills - is punishable with excommunication or death, both in the religious community of the own tribe and in the terror regime of racism.
But what are you to become if you have a sense of human dignity and social justice?
"You act around white people as if you didn't know that they are white. And they see it."
"Oh Christ, I can't be a slave", I said hopelessly.
"But you've got to eat", he said.
"Yes, I got to eat."
Following Richard Wright's path to breaking free from the dilemma of being human and having to eat is a chilling reading experience, one that reminds us why we can't shrug off the rising voices of tribalism as fringe phenomena. They are not. And they use the fact that hunger or need can drive a person to do many things. The indignity of being hungry creates the power vacuum that plays into the hands of a privileged tribe.
The miracle is that Wright survived his childhood and grew up to be able to tell his story. In that sense, it is a story of hope for humanity. If you can find a way to fake a library card to borrow books in a town where African Americans are excluded from the right to gain knowledge from reading, if you can save money to buy a train ticket out of hell, if you can find enough things worth living for to never give up, then you send a message of hope.
What was the turning point in Richard Wright's life? Storytelling! The stories he read, the stories he wrote, the stories he heard, the stories he made up for a better future. Storytelling is food for humanity!
"Yes, I got to eat."
How to describe the life of a poor, uneducated boy in the Jim Crow South between the world wars? Possibly, he would have led a less vulnerable life, had he been able to tune out his intelligence and his sensitivity. Possibly, he would have fared better if he hadn't been born to see human beings beyond the colour of their skin and their power to hurt. But he was born free, and therefore a target.
A target in his own family, where he was punished for his lack of submission to the demeaning rituals of religion:
"This business of saving souls had no ethics; every human relationship was shamelessly exploited. In essence, the tribe was asking us whether we shared its feelings; if we refused to join the church, it was equivalent to saying no, to placing ourselves in the position of moral monsters."
The hierarchy of religious submission, kept in place by emotional blackmail, is mirrored in the "god-given" segregation and exploitation of African Americans by white supremacists on all levels of interaction. Keep your head down, smile and bow to the white population, and you may be spared, if you are lucky. Show a white person that you do not believe in their right to mistreat you, and you will be lynched.
Even if you submit physically to the commands of your tribe and of the white community, it is not enough. Walking upright and thinking for yourself is a danger in itself, even if you stick to the rules. As Orwell put it: you have to LOVE Big Brother.
"Thou shalt not think!"
That is the commandment that Richard Wright learns as a beaten, hungry, neglected child. You can kill and steal and drink and cheat, but you cannot think. Thinking - or putting thoughts on paper, or taking help from books to further develop thinking skills - is punishable with excommunication or death, both in the religious community of the own tribe and in the terror regime of racism.
But what are you to become if you have a sense of human dignity and social justice?
"You act around white people as if you didn't know that they are white. And they see it."
"Oh Christ, I can't be a slave", I said hopelessly.
"But you've got to eat", he said.
"Yes, I got to eat."
Following Richard Wright's path to breaking free from the dilemma of being human and having to eat is a chilling reading experience, one that reminds us why we can't shrug off the rising voices of tribalism as fringe phenomena. They are not. And they use the fact that hunger or need can drive a person to do many things. The indignity of being hungry creates the power vacuum that plays into the hands of a privileged tribe.
The miracle is that Wright survived his childhood and grew up to be able to tell his story. In that sense, it is a story of hope for humanity. If you can find a way to fake a library card to borrow books in a town where African Americans are excluded from the right to gain knowledge from reading, if you can save money to buy a train ticket out of hell, if you can find enough things worth living for to never give up, then you send a message of hope.
What was the turning point in Richard Wright's life? Storytelling! The stories he read, the stories he wrote, the stories he heard, the stories he made up for a better future. Storytelling is food for humanity!
"Yes, I got to eat."
April 3, 2013
Professor Amy Hungerford points out in her Open Yale lectures:
that there is a certain amount of well-founded doubt as to the absolute accuracy of this work as an autobiography. Wright, however, does not claim this as his life, but rather as a Record of Youth and Childhood, the tale of a Black Boy growing up in the Southern States between the two World Wars. Thus a generic life. There can be no doubt whatsoever about its emotional authenticity. I read this with a kind of ghastly horrified fascination, thinking only what a dreadful time and place for an intelligent young black man to be alive.
As a boy, Richard is routinely, relentlessly, habitually beaten: by his mother and his grandmother, and later the same kind of treatment is attempted by an uncle and an aunt. But this is no mawkish misery memoir of the kind that seemed to dominate the bestseller lists for a while, spawning a whole spate of copycat accounts of dubious provenance, this is not the 'uplifting' tale of one person's triumph over adversity. No, this is generic: that kind of upbringing was the best-intentioned attempt by Richard's family to beat out of him a characteristic that might prove fatal to a black man living under the Jim Crow statutes: a sense of self-worth. An attitude that the whites might perceive to be sassy. Richard is beaten for being lippy, for talking back, for claiming that there is a version of the truth that he sees and that may be at odds with the truth of authority. All untenable, dangerous positions for a black man to take. His mother and grandmother know the only way for a black man to survive: by turning into a childish buffoon or a servile idiot, the roles expected by that white culture that surrounds them. They recognize, too, the danger that a rebellious young man may find the only outlet for his aspirations the creativity of crime, how best to cheat and steal, and they take refuge in exaggerated religiosity that offers rules but no comfort. Certainly Richard can find nothing for himself there.
Prof. Hungerford also tells the publication history of this work: it was originally one third longer than the version I read, was written in two parts. "Southern Night" is basically what we have here, and "The Horror and the Glory", which follows Richard after he moved to Chicago in 1927, at the age of nineteen. At the time of its publication in 1944, the Book of the Month Club is a hugely influential marketing tool, and their board decides that they don't want the second section at all, and in fact that is what Richard Wright agrees to. But what difference does this make? Well, any novel of this kind can be seen as a Bildungsroman, the story of a youth and his development to manhood. The point is that manhood cannot be attained in that place at that time. Richard needs a second childhood in Chicago in order to attain that state of autonomous, thinking individual whose opinion is sought and valued. In Jackson, even in Memphis (more urban) he is required to remain a child in order to survive. His first venture into the white world of work illustrates this clearly:
"'Do you want this job?' the woman asked.
'Yes, ma'am,' I said, afraid to trust my own judgement.
'Now, boy, I want to ask you one question and I want you to tell me the truth,' she said.
'Yes, ma'am,' I said, all attention.
'Do you steal?' she asked me seriously.
I burst into a laugh and then checked myself.
'What's so damn funny about that?' she asked.
'Lady, if I was a thief, I'd never tell anybody.'" (p 145)
Richard realises his mistake immediately: he has recognized the naivety of the question, has betrayed his shock at an attitude of mind that will not even allow him the subtlety of intellect to see the possibility of telling a self-serving untruth when necessary. He sees that white people want to keep him and other black men 'in their place': and their place is that of a subservient child, or even an animal-like plaything for the amusement of the whites. He has to get out of the South, not only because his ego is in danger of going under, but, as is constantly brought home, he is in mortal danger. Lynchings are part of his reality.
How does he survive, how does he manage to emerge from this? Stories. First reading, initially escapist fantasies, and then also writing. Then later, through a subterfuge with a library ticket, as he is not allowed to borrow from the library himself, he reads voraciously, finding that it was out of 'the emotional impact of imaginative construction of heroic or tragic deeds, that I felt touching my face a tinge of warmth from an unseen light; and in my leaving I was groping toward that invisible light, always trying to keep my face so set and turned that I would not lose the hope of its faint promise, using it as my justification for action.' (p.260-261) The aspirational power of literature is what saves him: it offers him the idea of another world, a world that he, too, can be part of.
that there is a certain amount of well-founded doubt as to the absolute accuracy of this work as an autobiography. Wright, however, does not claim this as his life, but rather as a Record of Youth and Childhood, the tale of a Black Boy growing up in the Southern States between the two World Wars. Thus a generic life. There can be no doubt whatsoever about its emotional authenticity. I read this with a kind of ghastly horrified fascination, thinking only what a dreadful time and place for an intelligent young black man to be alive.
As a boy, Richard is routinely, relentlessly, habitually beaten: by his mother and his grandmother, and later the same kind of treatment is attempted by an uncle and an aunt. But this is no mawkish misery memoir of the kind that seemed to dominate the bestseller lists for a while, spawning a whole spate of copycat accounts of dubious provenance, this is not the 'uplifting' tale of one person's triumph over adversity. No, this is generic: that kind of upbringing was the best-intentioned attempt by Richard's family to beat out of him a characteristic that might prove fatal to a black man living under the Jim Crow statutes: a sense of self-worth. An attitude that the whites might perceive to be sassy. Richard is beaten for being lippy, for talking back, for claiming that there is a version of the truth that he sees and that may be at odds with the truth of authority. All untenable, dangerous positions for a black man to take. His mother and grandmother know the only way for a black man to survive: by turning into a childish buffoon or a servile idiot, the roles expected by that white culture that surrounds them. They recognize, too, the danger that a rebellious young man may find the only outlet for his aspirations the creativity of crime, how best to cheat and steal, and they take refuge in exaggerated religiosity that offers rules but no comfort. Certainly Richard can find nothing for himself there.
Prof. Hungerford also tells the publication history of this work: it was originally one third longer than the version I read, was written in two parts. "Southern Night" is basically what we have here, and "The Horror and the Glory", which follows Richard after he moved to Chicago in 1927, at the age of nineteen. At the time of its publication in 1944, the Book of the Month Club is a hugely influential marketing tool, and their board decides that they don't want the second section at all, and in fact that is what Richard Wright agrees to. But what difference does this make? Well, any novel of this kind can be seen as a Bildungsroman, the story of a youth and his development to manhood. The point is that manhood cannot be attained in that place at that time. Richard needs a second childhood in Chicago in order to attain that state of autonomous, thinking individual whose opinion is sought and valued. In Jackson, even in Memphis (more urban) he is required to remain a child in order to survive. His first venture into the white world of work illustrates this clearly:
"'Do you want this job?' the woman asked.
'Yes, ma'am,' I said, afraid to trust my own judgement.
'Now, boy, I want to ask you one question and I want you to tell me the truth,' she said.
'Yes, ma'am,' I said, all attention.
'Do you steal?' she asked me seriously.
I burst into a laugh and then checked myself.
'What's so damn funny about that?' she asked.
'Lady, if I was a thief, I'd never tell anybody.'" (p 145)
Richard realises his mistake immediately: he has recognized the naivety of the question, has betrayed his shock at an attitude of mind that will not even allow him the subtlety of intellect to see the possibility of telling a self-serving untruth when necessary. He sees that white people want to keep him and other black men 'in their place': and their place is that of a subservient child, or even an animal-like plaything for the amusement of the whites. He has to get out of the South, not only because his ego is in danger of going under, but, as is constantly brought home, he is in mortal danger. Lynchings are part of his reality.
How does he survive, how does he manage to emerge from this? Stories. First reading, initially escapist fantasies, and then also writing. Then later, through a subterfuge with a library ticket, as he is not allowed to borrow from the library himself, he reads voraciously, finding that it was out of 'the emotional impact of imaginative construction of heroic or tragic deeds, that I felt touching my face a tinge of warmth from an unseen light; and in my leaving I was groping toward that invisible light, always trying to keep my face so set and turned that I would not lose the hope of its faint promise, using it as my justification for action.' (p.260-261) The aspirational power of literature is what saves him: it offers him the idea of another world, a world that he, too, can be part of.
June 10, 2024
Black Boy by Richard Wright is a Memoir and Semi-Autobiographical Novel!
“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all.� ~ Richard Wright, Black Boy
Richard Wright's frank and raw depiction of racism is seen through his eyes as a young and infinitely curious negro boy growing up in the Jim Crow South. He experiences severe poverty and hunger, and the ever-present threat of violence and abuse from whites, as well as from members of his own family. Discovering a passion for reading in his youth was his salvation.
With dreams of becoming a writer, Wright is convinced his future points North and eventually migrates to Chicago. He is attracted to the ideologies of the Communist Party but becomes disillusioned by its internal challenges. He continues to find solace in his dream of becoming a writer...
Black Boy is a heart-wrenching account of Wright's early life in the South yet the payoff was experiencing how his distinctive writing style held my attention and left me wanting more. Just look at the beautifully poetic quote above as an example. I found this to be an authentic reflection of how he transformed from his youth to adulthood while remaining curious and hungry for answers. Despite leaving public school with a junior high school education to support his mother and brother, his eyes remained on his dream by being relentlessly autodidactic through his love of reading.
This was an immersion read of this Classic using the 15H 28M audiobook, superbly narrated by Peter Francis James, and the Kindle version of the 75th-anniversary edition which also contains a foreword by John Edgar Wideman and an afterword by Malcolm Wright, the author's grandson. There is also an in-depth timeline of Richard Wright's life.
I highly recommend Black Boy as an immersion read to get the full experience of this remarkable Classic!
5�
“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all.� ~ Richard Wright, Black Boy
Richard Wright's frank and raw depiction of racism is seen through his eyes as a young and infinitely curious negro boy growing up in the Jim Crow South. He experiences severe poverty and hunger, and the ever-present threat of violence and abuse from whites, as well as from members of his own family. Discovering a passion for reading in his youth was his salvation.
With dreams of becoming a writer, Wright is convinced his future points North and eventually migrates to Chicago. He is attracted to the ideologies of the Communist Party but becomes disillusioned by its internal challenges. He continues to find solace in his dream of becoming a writer...
Black Boy is a heart-wrenching account of Wright's early life in the South yet the payoff was experiencing how his distinctive writing style held my attention and left me wanting more. Just look at the beautifully poetic quote above as an example. I found this to be an authentic reflection of how he transformed from his youth to adulthood while remaining curious and hungry for answers. Despite leaving public school with a junior high school education to support his mother and brother, his eyes remained on his dream by being relentlessly autodidactic through his love of reading.
This was an immersion read of this Classic using the 15H 28M audiobook, superbly narrated by Peter Francis James, and the Kindle version of the 75th-anniversary edition which also contains a foreword by John Edgar Wideman and an afterword by Malcolm Wright, the author's grandson. There is also an in-depth timeline of Richard Wright's life.
I highly recommend Black Boy as an immersion read to get the full experience of this remarkable Classic!
5�
January 27, 2008
Black Boy is the book that made me fall in love with reading. I was in Italy with my family on spring break and I was required to read Black Boy for my english class. This book pulled me in. I remember walking around Italy with my nose in the book, barely looking up. I made my step-dad stop in a bookstore so I could buy more books by Richard Wright. I read Native Son next. As Black Boy is Wright's autobiography, I was enthralled with Richard Wright's life and how he was able to escape the hardships and pains of his life by reading and getting absorbed into the story of someone else's life. I needed that escape at that point in my life and Wright taught me that when life is hard and you don't want to think about your reality anymore, you can always pick up a good book.
April 4, 2008
I felt something shift in me as a reader as I neared the end of Wright’s autobiography. Where he began relating his experiences of, and delineating his theoretical disagreements with, the Communist party in Chicago, my experience of reading became less interactive, less organic, and to some degree, less interesting. I think I stopped making personal connections to the material. I was no longer reading to discover what feelings, ideas, or insights his story would incite in me. Instead, I began engaging with his words on an intellectual level, processing the points of his argument and accepting some and rejecting others. It occurred to me, that at this point in the book, his style changed, and this observation allowed me to ponder again something that Phillip had said about my first workshop submission—that my writing in that piece tended more to the sociological than to the literary. One of the ways I’ve come to understand that comment is through Virginia Woolf’s observation in A Room of One’s Own that “when a book lacks suggestive power, however hard it hits the surface of the mind it cannot penetrate within.� Some books simply educate, while others enlighten by allowing the reader’s experience to mix with those on the page. Or, some, like Wright’s, begin in a brilliant literary vein but veer off when the writer becomes too didactic.
February 7, 2017
I hesitated between 3 and 4 stars for Black Boy. I felt that it was similar in structure to Invisible Man by Ellison but the writing, in my opinion was inferior. Like Ellison, the novel starts with Wright's childhood in the South - deserted by his father and always hungry (the original title was American Hunger - he teaches himself to read (a dangerous occupation for a black person in the South of the 20s and discovers and suffers from poverty and racism. However, the narrative was quite plodding in the beginning and only really interested me when he started reading Sinclair Lewis, Proust and Dostoyevsky. When he is a little older, he manages to move north, but unlike the Invisible Man, he chooses Chicago where he has family rather than Harlem. He has a conflictual relationship with the Communist Party there from which he is ultimately rejected. The book ends rather suddenly after this rejection. Perhaps Wright's message and intent in writing this memoir is best summed up a quote from Part 2 in Chapter XV, "but sharing the culture that condemns him, and seeing that a lust for trash is what blinds the nation to his claims, is what sets storms to rolling in his soul."
It is not a very optimistic book and - sorry to be repetitive - I really found Invisible Man far more engaging and even deeper when exploring the same themes of racism's deep corruption of everything it touches and how black intellectuals had to struggle against white supremacists as well as a slavery-damaged Black community which to a great extent had lost their dignity - a dignity that both Wright and Ellison fought to restore during both of their careers. It is fair to say that without Wright and Ellison, there would have never been a MLK or Obama.
It is not a very optimistic book and - sorry to be repetitive - I really found Invisible Man far more engaging and even deeper when exploring the same themes of racism's deep corruption of everything it touches and how black intellectuals had to struggle against white supremacists as well as a slavery-damaged Black community which to a great extent had lost their dignity - a dignity that both Wright and Ellison fought to restore during both of their careers. It is fair to say that without Wright and Ellison, there would have never been a MLK or Obama.
November 21, 2018
L'altro giorno scarrellavo (tipo zapping selvaggio alla Fantozzi) in TV e alla fine mi son fermato su un canale dove stavano trasmettendo un documentario su un nuovo movimento nazionalista, neofascista di estrema destra. Nel mentre stavo leggendo "Ragazzo negro" e mi son detto: sarà il Fato? Comunque mi guardo questo documentario dove venivano intervistati i membri e perlopiù erano giovani, giovanissimi, poco più che maggiorenni. Non ci volevo credere ma si parlava ancora di: famiglia tradizionale, prima gli italiani (e poi solo gli italiani?!), discriminazione ed altre robette di questo genere... Un'ora di tedio e finalmente è finito, ma forse il mio sentimento più forte è stato quello di delusione, perchè esiste la discriminazione?
Queste ed altre domande si pone, anche Richard in questo libro autobiografico. Siamo nel Mississipi, nel Sud, profondo Sud degli Stati Uniti, agli inizi del 1900. Richard scoprirà, a proprie spese, cos'è essere neri in quel periodo (a 100 anni di distanza sarà cambiato qualcosa?) e continuerà a chiedersi molti perchè.
Il "Perchè" penso sia la scintilla della vita di ognuno di Noi, quando siamo piccoli, pochi anni ed iniziamo a parlare, il nostro cervello cresce e quando iniziamo a chiedere ai nostri genitori perchè questo perchè quello, allora è lì l'inizio vero della nostra coscienza, si sta formando qualcosa dentro di noi.
Concordo con ciò che dice Cesare Pavese a proposito di questo libro: "Uno di quei libri che temprano le coscienze".
Un capolavoro assoluto, penso sia un libro che tutti dovrebbero leggere. Apre la mente, gli spunti di riflessione sono molteplici...
Queste ed altre domande si pone, anche Richard in questo libro autobiografico. Siamo nel Mississipi, nel Sud, profondo Sud degli Stati Uniti, agli inizi del 1900. Richard scoprirà, a proprie spese, cos'è essere neri in quel periodo (a 100 anni di distanza sarà cambiato qualcosa?) e continuerà a chiedersi molti perchè.
Il "Perchè" penso sia la scintilla della vita di ognuno di Noi, quando siamo piccoli, pochi anni ed iniziamo a parlare, il nostro cervello cresce e quando iniziamo a chiedere ai nostri genitori perchè questo perchè quello, allora è lì l'inizio vero della nostra coscienza, si sta formando qualcosa dentro di noi.
Concordo con ciò che dice Cesare Pavese a proposito di questo libro: "Uno di quei libri che temprano le coscienze".
Un capolavoro assoluto, penso sia un libro che tutti dovrebbero leggere. Apre la mente, gli spunti di riflessione sono molteplici...
May 5, 2016
i’m in the minority (minority. heh heh.) in finding this book superior to ellison’s invisible man. it might not be as daring, might lack the touch of modernist irony, but sometimes ya gotta shove all that aside and recognize a great book for just being a great book. something ellison’s book just ain't.
June 2, 2024
I don't feel I can do justice on a review of this book, so I won't try. To rise from a lethal family with no kind words or support of any kind in the Mississippi racial atmosphere, to the different type of prejudice by the Communists in Chicago, pretty much self-educated, to become one of the foremost black writers in the world......quite a feat.
November 11, 2015
Here's Richard Wright going door to door in the 1920s Jim Crow South trying to sell his dog for a dollar because he's starving. A white lady offers him 97 cents and, feeling some distant surge of fury inside, he turns her down, goes home with his dog and his hunger. A few days later and this book is a bummer. This is not quite 100 years ago, this hellish world he's trying to claw out of. The degradation required of black people in order to survive is a nightmare.
So this skinny kid teaches himself to read, borrows a lone sympathetic white guy's library card, forges a note from him. He makes sure the note includes a racial slur, to make it more believable; it's crucial that the librarian not guess the books are for himself. He dives into Dostoevsky, Dreiser, Gertrude Stein.
So this skinny kid teaches himself to read, borrows a lone sympathetic white guy's library card, forges a note from him. He makes sure the note includes a racial slur, to make it more believable; it's crucial that the librarian not guess the books are for himself. He dives into Dostoevsky, Dreiser, Gertrude Stein.
The plots and stories in the novels did not interest me so much as the point of view revealed. I gave myself over to each novel without reserve, without trying to criticize it; it was enough for me to see and feel something different. And for me, everything was something different...If you've ever wondered how reading can be an act of revolution, this book will lay it all out for you. Jim Crow depended on the ignorance of black people. As Wright started to see other perspectives, he understood how the system oppressed him and he started to see that things could be different. Reading was war for him. He tried to hide what was happening behind the shuck and jive, but it was impossible; white people could sense that he had become dangerous.
In buoying me up, reading also cast me down, made me see what was possible, what I had missed. My tension returned, new, terrible, bitter, surging, almost too great to be contained. I no longer felt that the world around me was hostile, killing; I knew it.
"Why don't you laugh and talk like the other niggers?" [his boss] asked.And he does; Here, as in Native Son, Wright slows down quite a bit; the back third of each book gets extremely talky. He sucks you in and then he's like "Now that I've got you, let's talk about Communism." But even with the - let's face it - boring stuff, this is still the best description of life under Jim Crow I've ever read. Wright is not just a self-made man but a man who has made himself in the face of an entire system dedicated to keeping him unmade; it's pretty inspiring stuff. And he's succeeded in turning himself into one of the great writers of the century.
"Well, sir, there's nothing much to say or smile about," I said, smiling.
His face was hard, baffled; I knew that I had not convinced him..."I don't like your looks, nigger. Now, get!" he snapped.
Perhaps, I thought, out of my tortured feelings I could fling a spark into this darkness...I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all, to keep alive in our hearts a sense of the inexpressibly human.Mission accomplished, Wright. Sorry about your dog.
October 9, 2024
I read this in college as part of an American lit class. Until then, I didn't realize how naive and sheltered a life I must've led. This book had a profound impact on my consciousness of what is racism in the US.
I had only known racism in the context of my less than two decades of life in how it pertained to my family and me. I'd seen it in action, but only from the perspective of an Asian immigrant in a very small, almost entirely white, lower middle class municipality. I'd encountered some racial slurs in Brooklyn, but I didn't understand them. And then we moved to the suburbs of NJ when I was eight. For ten years, I was told to go back to my country, interrogated about what and where Korea was on the map, told by veterans that they'd served in the Korean War and was expected to know what that meant (I really had no awareness because my parents refused to talk about it), and only ever temporarily befriended by people who wanted to use me for my homework or to cheat off of me on a test.
Even when I went to college, the first two years covered my graduation requirements and most of it was surface level analytical thinking - it was to ensure we had a broad education of the liberal arts basics. I took this American literature class after declaring my majors, one of which was English literature. It was a pivotal moment for me to realize how different racism is to people outside my own demographics. While the book took place in the 50s, I was able to recognize how little had changed since then, once my eyes and my mind opened up to listening to accounts from my fellow students. This book and the other works we read by Richard Wright (Native Son and The Outsider) are largely responsible for my internal sense of justice, why I seek activism and antiracism, why I donate to the causes I do, and why I vote the way I do in every election at every level of government.
This is the same review I'll be leaving for the other two books mentioned above. And I really need to reread all of them soon!
I had only known racism in the context of my less than two decades of life in how it pertained to my family and me. I'd seen it in action, but only from the perspective of an Asian immigrant in a very small, almost entirely white, lower middle class municipality. I'd encountered some racial slurs in Brooklyn, but I didn't understand them. And then we moved to the suburbs of NJ when I was eight. For ten years, I was told to go back to my country, interrogated about what and where Korea was on the map, told by veterans that they'd served in the Korean War and was expected to know what that meant (I really had no awareness because my parents refused to talk about it), and only ever temporarily befriended by people who wanted to use me for my homework or to cheat off of me on a test.
Even when I went to college, the first two years covered my graduation requirements and most of it was surface level analytical thinking - it was to ensure we had a broad education of the liberal arts basics. I took this American literature class after declaring my majors, one of which was English literature. It was a pivotal moment for me to realize how different racism is to people outside my own demographics. While the book took place in the 50s, I was able to recognize how little had changed since then, once my eyes and my mind opened up to listening to accounts from my fellow students. This book and the other works we read by Richard Wright (Native Son and The Outsider) are largely responsible for my internal sense of justice, why I seek activism and antiracism, why I donate to the causes I do, and why I vote the way I do in every election at every level of government.
This is the same review I'll be leaving for the other two books mentioned above. And I really need to reread all of them soon!
December 29, 2023
কী অদম্�, অতিমানবীয় প্রাণশক্তি থাকল� অকথ্� নির্যাতন আর যাতন� সয়ে হাসিমুখে বাঁচার চেষ্টা কোরে জগতে নিজে� স্থা� কর� নেওয়া যায় তা রিচার্� রাইটের আত্মজীবনী পড়ল� বোঝা যায়� প্রায় প্রতিট� দি� ছিলো উদ্বেগ� ভর�,প্রায় প্রতিট� রা� ছিলো আতঙ্কের।গত শতকে আমেরিকার বর্ণবাদে� গল্প আমাদের জানা� তারপরও � স্মৃতিকথ� স্নায়ুর ওপ� প্রচণ্� চা� সৃষ্টি করে। ভয়াবহ একটা বই�
(এট� পাঁচ তারক� পাওয়া� যোগ্য। অনুবাদ ভালো কিন্তু আমেরিকানদে� মুখে ঢাকাইয়া বুলি সহ্য হয� নাই। তা� এক তারক� কম�)
(এট� পাঁচ তারক� পাওয়া� যোগ্য। অনুবাদ ভালো কিন্তু আমেরিকানদে� মুখে ঢাকাইয়া বুলি সহ্য হয� নাই। তা� এক তারক� কম�)
February 13, 2025
I would give a million stars to this book if I could!!!
Richard Wright lived from 1908 to 1960, the book is an autobiography taking place from around 1912 to 1928. The book mainly focuses on Wrights childhood such as the abuse he suffered under his father, his mothers illness, having to move house constantly, the ever present threat of starvation and living as a young black boy in the South after the civil war.
As the story progresses, Richard is mistreated terribly by almost everyone around him. He slowly learns through gruesome exposure that he is of a lower class to the whites who live in the city and pays the price many times for not acting like how a coloured man is supposed to act.
He is forced to fight and steal to earn his daily bread but while living with the threat of violence looming over him he teaches himself to read and write, picking up a great love of literature which set him on the path to breaking free of the cultural prison he is in.
As I understand it, this book as well as other books written by Wright where used as inspiration during the civil rights movements. His life is extremely raw, painful, heart breaking and uncensored. The account of what is was like to live in the South (Jackson) as a young black man is very difficult and upsetting at times to read. There were points where I stopped, looked at my own hands (I'm white) and cried for all those of coloured skin who suffered there whole lives at the hands of white greed.
This book was challenging, incredibly moving and thought provoking. It is not glossy or defiant in the face of evil, you walk with Richard through a hell that he was forced into and you can only hope that he makes the jump to the North and in doing so, finds some peace at the end of the story.
5/5 This book changed the world.
Thank you Mr Wright for not giving up on humanity. x
Richard Wright lived from 1908 to 1960, the book is an autobiography taking place from around 1912 to 1928. The book mainly focuses on Wrights childhood such as the abuse he suffered under his father, his mothers illness, having to move house constantly, the ever present threat of starvation and living as a young black boy in the South after the civil war.
As the story progresses, Richard is mistreated terribly by almost everyone around him. He slowly learns through gruesome exposure that he is of a lower class to the whites who live in the city and pays the price many times for not acting like how a coloured man is supposed to act.
He is forced to fight and steal to earn his daily bread but while living with the threat of violence looming over him he teaches himself to read and write, picking up a great love of literature which set him on the path to breaking free of the cultural prison he is in.
As I understand it, this book as well as other books written by Wright where used as inspiration during the civil rights movements. His life is extremely raw, painful, heart breaking and uncensored. The account of what is was like to live in the South (Jackson) as a young black man is very difficult and upsetting at times to read. There were points where I stopped, looked at my own hands (I'm white) and cried for all those of coloured skin who suffered there whole lives at the hands of white greed.
This book was challenging, incredibly moving and thought provoking. It is not glossy or defiant in the face of evil, you walk with Richard through a hell that he was forced into and you can only hope that he makes the jump to the North and in doing so, finds some peace at the end of the story.
5/5 This book changed the world.
Thank you Mr Wright for not giving up on humanity. x
August 31, 2021
Reading this soon after Ellison’s Invisible Man, one is struck by the similarities of their content: an intelligent black man, raised in the south, comes north to seek a better life, only to be rejected by the Communist Party. But the differences in style are also striking: where Ellison is subtle, literary, experimental, Wright is direct, simple, and straightforward. However, the books do share one stylistic commonality: fast pacing. In both, the protagonist jumps from one crisis to another, in a relentless stream of events that push the action forward at breakneck speed.
The fast pacing creates an almost comical affect in Wright’s book, as it gives the impression that the protagonist (himself) never had a quiet moment in his life. While highly entertaining—open virtually any page and you will soon be entangled in a good yarn—the final effect is less than the sum of its parts, since the story is both disjointed and difficult to believe. The rhythm of the book is so unlike the rhythm of everyday life, with its long stretches of uneventful boredom, that it reads more like a novel than a factual biography.
If it is a novel it is, thankfully, a good one, whose many anecdotes provide a compelling portrait of a certain time and place in American history. With its constant themes of misunderstanding, being misunderstood, and not fitting in, Black Boy reminded me very strongly of Rousseau’s Confessions—though Wright is not as self-centered or as self-pitying as his Swiss predecessor. Nevertheless, despite the deep sympathy one cannot help feeling for him, Wright does not exactly come across as likable. If he was largely friendless during his life, one cannot help suspecting that his standoffish and cold personality contributed as much as his environment.
Part II is substantially different in tone and content from the first one, about Wright’s childhood. Here we learn of his unsuccessful attempts to find a home in the Communist Party after his move to the South Side of Chicago. In this part, the rhythm is not so herky-jerky, but tells a sustained story of his political education and disillusionment. Wright’s characterization of the communists—as paranoid, obsessed with loyalty, and frightened by intellectual independence—matches that by Ellison, and is certainly not flattering. While his account is convincing, one also suspects that Wright is indulging in a bit of literary vengeance here.
With all its flaws, and its (possible?) distortions of fact, I think Black Boy must be counted among the great American autobiographies, alongside Frederick Douglass’s and (lord help us) Henry Adams’s. And since it is more readable than most novels, there is no excuse to avoid it.
The fast pacing creates an almost comical affect in Wright’s book, as it gives the impression that the protagonist (himself) never had a quiet moment in his life. While highly entertaining—open virtually any page and you will soon be entangled in a good yarn—the final effect is less than the sum of its parts, since the story is both disjointed and difficult to believe. The rhythm of the book is so unlike the rhythm of everyday life, with its long stretches of uneventful boredom, that it reads more like a novel than a factual biography.
If it is a novel it is, thankfully, a good one, whose many anecdotes provide a compelling portrait of a certain time and place in American history. With its constant themes of misunderstanding, being misunderstood, and not fitting in, Black Boy reminded me very strongly of Rousseau’s Confessions—though Wright is not as self-centered or as self-pitying as his Swiss predecessor. Nevertheless, despite the deep sympathy one cannot help feeling for him, Wright does not exactly come across as likable. If he was largely friendless during his life, one cannot help suspecting that his standoffish and cold personality contributed as much as his environment.
Part II is substantially different in tone and content from the first one, about Wright’s childhood. Here we learn of his unsuccessful attempts to find a home in the Communist Party after his move to the South Side of Chicago. In this part, the rhythm is not so herky-jerky, but tells a sustained story of his political education and disillusionment. Wright’s characterization of the communists—as paranoid, obsessed with loyalty, and frightened by intellectual independence—matches that by Ellison, and is certainly not flattering. While his account is convincing, one also suspects that Wright is indulging in a bit of literary vengeance here.
With all its flaws, and its (possible?) distortions of fact, I think Black Boy must be counted among the great American autobiographies, alongside Frederick Douglass’s and (lord help us) Henry Adams’s. And since it is more readable than most novels, there is no excuse to avoid it.
May 30, 2022
This is a powerful autobiography by Richard Wright � a Black man born in Mississippi. His parents were illiterate, his father abandoned the family, and he live with various extended family members who moved frequently, unable to afford the rent. Sometimes they were forced to move due to violent white repression. Richard constantly suffered from malnutrition and was underweight.
At a young age, he became enthralled with stories, and self-taught himself to read. His religious family did not encourage him in his reading endeavors and felt it a waste of time.
There are many heartfelt passages on the suffering that Black people and Richard underwent in the South. Also, there are some hilarious sections on Richard’s reactions to his family’s religious beliefs. I had read this book decades ago and had forgotten how biting and funny it was.
The second part of the book is when he moved north and lived in Chicago. He became enamoured of the Communist Party and joined. It was also a way to get his writings published. It was the first time in his life where he mingled on an “equal� basis with white people. I put the word - equal - in parenthesis because Richard came to realize that the Communist Party was very hierarchical and one was strictly required to follow the party line or risk being ostracized and victimized by a witch hunt. There are some amusing examples provided. Richard Wright was a strong, independent individual who did not easily accommodate himself to group thinking.
This book is essential to understanding the Black struggle in the United States. It is eloquent and searing.
I found the following very prescient (from page 272, my book):
I feel that America’s past is too shallow, her national character too superficially optimistic, her very morality too suffused with color hate for her to accomplish so vast and complex a task [for white America to understand the significance of the problem of the Negro]. Culturally the Negro represents a paradox: Though he is an organic part of the nation, he is excluded by the entire tide and direction of American culture. Frankly, it is felt to be right to exclude him, and it is felt to be wrong to admit him freely. Therefore if, within the confines of its present culture, the nation ever seeks to purge itself of its color hate, it will find itself at war with itself, convulsed by a spasm of emotional and moral confusion. If the nation ever finds itself examining its real relation to the Negro, it will find itself doing infinitely more than that; for the anti-Negro attitude of whites represents but a tiny part - though a symbolically significant one � of the moral attitude of the nation. Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness.
At a young age, he became enthralled with stories, and self-taught himself to read. His religious family did not encourage him in his reading endeavors and felt it a waste of time.
There are many heartfelt passages on the suffering that Black people and Richard underwent in the South. Also, there are some hilarious sections on Richard’s reactions to his family’s religious beliefs. I had read this book decades ago and had forgotten how biting and funny it was.
The second part of the book is when he moved north and lived in Chicago. He became enamoured of the Communist Party and joined. It was also a way to get his writings published. It was the first time in his life where he mingled on an “equal� basis with white people. I put the word - equal - in parenthesis because Richard came to realize that the Communist Party was very hierarchical and one was strictly required to follow the party line or risk being ostracized and victimized by a witch hunt. There are some amusing examples provided. Richard Wright was a strong, independent individual who did not easily accommodate himself to group thinking.
This book is essential to understanding the Black struggle in the United States. It is eloquent and searing.
I found the following very prescient (from page 272, my book):
I feel that America’s past is too shallow, her national character too superficially optimistic, her very morality too suffused with color hate for her to accomplish so vast and complex a task [for white America to understand the significance of the problem of the Negro]. Culturally the Negro represents a paradox: Though he is an organic part of the nation, he is excluded by the entire tide and direction of American culture. Frankly, it is felt to be right to exclude him, and it is felt to be wrong to admit him freely. Therefore if, within the confines of its present culture, the nation ever seeks to purge itself of its color hate, it will find itself at war with itself, convulsed by a spasm of emotional and moral confusion. If the nation ever finds itself examining its real relation to the Negro, it will find itself doing infinitely more than that; for the anti-Negro attitude of whites represents but a tiny part - though a symbolically significant one � of the moral attitude of the nation. Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness.
April 28, 2025
The first part of this book, Southern Night, is absolutely incredible: I was riveted by Wright's profoundly emotional and psychological self-portrait of growing up in the segregated South, made real in visceral, searing prose. At one point, Wright borrows a white co-worker's library card and is thereby able to borrow a book by H. L. Mencken, of which he writes:
"Yes, this man was fighting, fighting with words. He was using words as a weapon, using them as one would use a club. Could words be weapons? Well, yes, for here they were. Then, maybe, perhaps, I could use them as a weapon? No. It frightened me. I read on and what amazed me was not what he said, but how on earth anybody had the courage to say it."
Wright may have been frightened by Mencken's use of words "as weapons" at that time, but years later, those same words could be used to describe Black Boy—I was in awe of Wright's courage in writing this book.
While reading Black Boy, I was haunted by a persistent question: "How many others lived and died like this?" On one hand, the protagonist of Black Boy, who was based on Wright's own life story, is an Everyman: the description of his childhood could have been that of countless black boys growing up in the segregated South in the early twentieth century. On the other hand, he is unique because we know that he eventually becomes a celebrated author. He doesn't simply describe the poverty, hunger, misery, and pain that he endured; he enables the reader to climb inside his body and mind and experience it with him. At times, I had to remind myself that these were just words, that somehow Wright was able to conjure these visceral experiences out of WORDS. Only a truly gifted writer is able to perform this kind of magic: making you see the world through their eyes, making you feel what they felt in your very bones.
The second part of the book, The Horror and The Glory was less interesting to me; most of it deals with Wright's problems and later disillusionment with various communist organizations.
"Yes, this man was fighting, fighting with words. He was using words as a weapon, using them as one would use a club. Could words be weapons? Well, yes, for here they were. Then, maybe, perhaps, I could use them as a weapon? No. It frightened me. I read on and what amazed me was not what he said, but how on earth anybody had the courage to say it."
Wright may have been frightened by Mencken's use of words "as weapons" at that time, but years later, those same words could be used to describe Black Boy—I was in awe of Wright's courage in writing this book.
While reading Black Boy, I was haunted by a persistent question: "How many others lived and died like this?" On one hand, the protagonist of Black Boy, who was based on Wright's own life story, is an Everyman: the description of his childhood could have been that of countless black boys growing up in the segregated South in the early twentieth century. On the other hand, he is unique because we know that he eventually becomes a celebrated author. He doesn't simply describe the poverty, hunger, misery, and pain that he endured; he enables the reader to climb inside his body and mind and experience it with him. At times, I had to remind myself that these were just words, that somehow Wright was able to conjure these visceral experiences out of WORDS. Only a truly gifted writer is able to perform this kind of magic: making you see the world through their eyes, making you feel what they felt in your very bones.
The second part of the book, The Horror and The Glory was less interesting to me; most of it deals with Wright's problems and later disillusionment with various communist organizations.
March 27, 2009
Every so often I will personally discover a story (not just "know" about it), written before my time, that opens up a world of enlightenment and gives answers to questions I didn't realize I had. Black Boy, the autobiographical memoir of author Richard Wright, is one of those novels. Originally, Black Boy was published as two separate novels (Black Boy and American Hunger). The first dealing with his childhood through late adolescents in the south. The second begins with Wright realizing his dream of moving north and his experiences in Chicago right before and during the Great Depression era rise of Communism.
Black Boy is one of those "quotable" books, where almost every chapter contains words and phrases that touch your heart and mind. Wright shares experiences and insights that are so brutally and shamelessly honest, they delve into the most sacred and sensitive places of the human experience, and almost any reader can identify with timelessness of his intense struggles and small, infrequent joys.
While reading/listening to Wright's memories, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the horror of the early 20th century south. During this time all Southern blacks lived in fear of the "White Terror." While reading this memoir I realized that to fully understand modern social policies and the impact and meaning these policies have on the African American community, it is necessary to look closely and far into the past of our racist history, prior to the familiar events of the Civil Rights Movement. By holding nothing back, by being open despite the pain and suffering he endured, Wright helps us to understand the true criminality of the Jim Crow laws of the early 1900's. It wasn't just about having to sit in the back of the bus. It was about being treated less than human on a daily basis. It was about being born into a profound hopelessness that could not be fought. It was about a people who were denied the experiences and education necessary to even be able to articulate this hopelessness. Where oppression was accepted as a fact of life.
Before I read Black Boy, I had never considered the lure of Communism to the African American citizens in cities during the Great Depression. The Communist Party's doctrine of equal rights, regardless of age, race, or gender must have been an irresistible hope to the Blacks who lived in such a dehumanizing time. Wright tells us through his writing how economically poor Blacks and Whites alike where first seduced, then disillusioned, by the Red movement in the North. While the social doctrine was more humane, the economic and political policies, often enforced through fear and alienation, had meant that individuals were expected trade their personal identities, dreams, and aspirations, for the hope of more safe and "equal" community. Wright realized through his experiences in the "Party" that he was trading one form of bondage was for another.
The beauty of Black Boy, is that Wright, a long deceased southern black man, who was the grandson of slaves, can artfully narrate his coming of age discoveries, raw emotions, and questioning spirit in a way that can connect with the experiences and thoughts of a 21st century, white, thirty-something woman.
Black Boy is one of those "quotable" books, where almost every chapter contains words and phrases that touch your heart and mind. Wright shares experiences and insights that are so brutally and shamelessly honest, they delve into the most sacred and sensitive places of the human experience, and almost any reader can identify with timelessness of his intense struggles and small, infrequent joys.
While reading/listening to Wright's memories, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the horror of the early 20th century south. During this time all Southern blacks lived in fear of the "White Terror." While reading this memoir I realized that to fully understand modern social policies and the impact and meaning these policies have on the African American community, it is necessary to look closely and far into the past of our racist history, prior to the familiar events of the Civil Rights Movement. By holding nothing back, by being open despite the pain and suffering he endured, Wright helps us to understand the true criminality of the Jim Crow laws of the early 1900's. It wasn't just about having to sit in the back of the bus. It was about being treated less than human on a daily basis. It was about being born into a profound hopelessness that could not be fought. It was about a people who were denied the experiences and education necessary to even be able to articulate this hopelessness. Where oppression was accepted as a fact of life.
Before I read Black Boy, I had never considered the lure of Communism to the African American citizens in cities during the Great Depression. The Communist Party's doctrine of equal rights, regardless of age, race, or gender must have been an irresistible hope to the Blacks who lived in such a dehumanizing time. Wright tells us through his writing how economically poor Blacks and Whites alike where first seduced, then disillusioned, by the Red movement in the North. While the social doctrine was more humane, the economic and political policies, often enforced through fear and alienation, had meant that individuals were expected trade their personal identities, dreams, and aspirations, for the hope of more safe and "equal" community. Wright realized through his experiences in the "Party" that he was trading one form of bondage was for another.
The beauty of Black Boy, is that Wright, a long deceased southern black man, who was the grandson of slaves, can artfully narrate his coming of age discoveries, raw emotions, and questioning spirit in a way that can connect with the experiences and thoughts of a 21st century, white, thirty-something woman.
November 28, 2020
L'autobiografia “Black boy� (1945) non brilla per originalità di scrittura, stile e/o contenuto.
Il valore reale dell’opera di R.W. è quello di poter essere considerato un documento di storia sociale.
Raccontandoci la sua vita (dall’infanzia ai vent’anni circa), di fatti, Wright, dà modo al lettore non solo di calarsi nelle atmosfere di un’epoca ma anche di entrare nel pensiero di un giovane nero e della sua comunità.
Le pagine più interessanti sono proprio quelle che ci delineano l’incontro/scontro del giovane afroamericano con la società bianca.
Un mondo che non si limita a disprezzare ma si assume il preciso carico di limitare ogni possibilità di crescita del popolo nero:
� Ma io, che non rubavo nulla, che volevo guardarli bene in faccia, che volevo parlare ed agire da uomo, ispiravo loro paura. I bianchi del Sud preferivano impiegare negri che rubavano piuttosto che negri che conoscessero, sia pure vagamente, il valore della propria umanità. Per conseguenza i bianchi ponevano un aggio sulla fraudolenza negra; incoraggiavano l'irresponsabilità, ed il loro compenso era rappresentato dal rafforzamento che ne risultava alla loro posizione di sicurezza e di superiorità.�
In un percorso che va dal 1914 al 1927, Wright racconta di una vita familiare instabile e una formazione scolastica che procede ad intermittenza.
Il piccolo Richard passa l’infanzia senza avere contatti diretti con i bianchi e quando, per necessità, si troverà a che fare con loro sarà un’esperienza fulminante che richiede una nuova e specifica “educazione�:
� Avevo cominciato troppo tardi ad aver a che fare con i bianchi. Non potevo far sì che la sottomissione divenisse un fatto automatico nel mio comportamento. Dovevo sentire e meditare ogni minima particella della mia esperienza razziale alla luce dell'intero problema della razza, e ad ogni particella io portavo l'intera mia vita. Quando mi trovavo dinanzi ad un bianco dovevo immaginare il modo di compiere ciascun gesto e di dire ciascuna parola. Non potevo farne a meno. Non potevo infischiarmene. In passato avevo sempre detto troppo, ed ora trovavo difficoltà addirittura a dire qualche cosa. Non potevo reagire nel modo in cui il mondo che mi circondava si aspettava da me; era un mondo troppo sconcertante, troppo insicuro.�
Pensare prima di agire è “semplicemente� una questione di vita o di morte.
Ecco dunque che relazionarsi con i bianchi diventa un’assurda e grottesca recita�
Wright rappresenta una generazione che ha sentito l’eco delle catene (nipote di un ex- schiavo, lui stesso, anche se nominalmente libero, era nato in una piantagione) ed escogita delle rappresentazioni del sé che gli permettano di restare a galla. La sua fortuna fu quella di trovarsi tra le mani un’arma: la scrittura.
E� l’incredulità quella che domina il pensiero di Wright di fronte ai continui atti di ostilità che vogliono mettere in dubbio la propria appartenenza al genere umano
� il problema di vivere come negro era arduo e difficile. Che cos'era che rendeva l'odio dei bianchi verso i negri così inflessibile, apparentemente insito nel tessuto stesso delle cose? Qual vita sarebbe stata possibile sotto la pressione di quest'odio? Come aveva potuto nascere quest'odio?�
January 4, 2015
Did I seriously just start this book two days ago? I lost track of time while I was reading this. I just sort of fell into it, only coming up for air for pesky things like work. And peeing.
I'm ashamed to say I haven't read anything by Richard Wright prior to this. I've been sitting on a few of his books, not really sure what I was waiting for. I decided to start with this one as it's a memoir and I figured a good a place as any to get a feel for an author. Now I'm glad I did so; I learned quite a good deal about Wright, starting from the age of four when he accidentally started his grandparents' house on fire and finishing somewhere in his twenties after his stint with the Communist Party.
There's a lot in between too, all blanketed in hunger, violence, racial tensions, and fear. It's not a pleasant read, but hard to put down once started. There's a lot of uncomfortable material regarding things that were done or said to Wright, certainly; but there's also a lot of uncomfortable material regarding things that Wright did and said. He was not shy in his hate of white people, aside from maybe one or two exceptions detailed in this book.
But it's those things that make this such an important book for everyone to read. There's a lot of uncomfortable things involving race in the news right now (and always), and reading this book makes one realize so little has changed since the 1940s when this was published. Wright doesn't offer any solutions here, though that was not his intention. He just wanted to have a voice.
I'm ashamed to say I haven't read anything by Richard Wright prior to this. I've been sitting on a few of his books, not really sure what I was waiting for. I decided to start with this one as it's a memoir and I figured a good a place as any to get a feel for an author. Now I'm glad I did so; I learned quite a good deal about Wright, starting from the age of four when he accidentally started his grandparents' house on fire and finishing somewhere in his twenties after his stint with the Communist Party.
There's a lot in between too, all blanketed in hunger, violence, racial tensions, and fear. It's not a pleasant read, but hard to put down once started. There's a lot of uncomfortable material regarding things that were done or said to Wright, certainly; but there's also a lot of uncomfortable material regarding things that Wright did and said. He was not shy in his hate of white people, aside from maybe one or two exceptions detailed in this book.
But it's those things that make this such an important book for everyone to read. There's a lot of uncomfortable things involving race in the news right now (and always), and reading this book makes one realize so little has changed since the 1940s when this was published. Wright doesn't offer any solutions here, though that was not his intention. He just wanted to have a voice.
June 3, 2017
In his semi-autobiographical novel, Richard Wright brilliantly describes the life of a "black boy" growing up in the racist and hostile south of the early 1900s. Moving north to Chicago, he gravitates to the Communist Party, whose race-blind approach gives him hope - but then becomes entangled in a different kind of repression.
The novel isn't just about cruelty and struggle and hunger; the pages are filled with the wonder and beauty Wright finds in reading, imagination and writing. He ends the novel with: "I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all, to keep alive in our hearts a sense of the inexpressibly human."
The novel isn't just about cruelty and struggle and hunger; the pages are filled with the wonder and beauty Wright finds in reading, imagination and writing. He ends the novel with: "I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all, to keep alive in our hearts a sense of the inexpressibly human."
December 20, 2007
During some sort of standardized test in high school one of our reading comprehension sections included a section of this book. It was the section where young Richard Wright (living in Alabama?) wanted to read libraby books, but couldn't check books out of the library because he was black. Wright went to the one person in the office where he worked as a janitor who might be sympathetic--because the man was Catholic and also suffered from slights from the other white Southerners. Wright had to ask this man to check out books from the library for him. It was the only way he could use the library. Being an inveterte bookworm myself, I was horrified at the idea of not being able to check books out of the library. (Okay, so I was sheltered, but consider that when my parents wanted to punish me for doing something awful, rather than ground me they would take away my books.) I knew I had to read the biography of a man who would risk so much to read books.
November 8, 2021
The bildungsroman of a poor black boy in the Jim Crow south to internationally renowned writer on the black experience and humanity of society’s disadvantaged. An incredible story with unexpected insights into the intolerance of religious fundamentalism, communism in America, and the systemic racism in education, economics, and even jobs programs of the New Deal.
October 23, 2020
La lettura come una droga, uno stupefacente
...ciò che mi lasciavano i romanzi era il senso stesso della vita.
Con autenticità e senza retorica, Richard Wright romanza la propria vita: la prima parte, quella più difficile, fino alla partenza per un viaggio incerto verso un sogno (più che correre verso qualche cosa ora stavo correndo lontano da qualche cosa). Ragazzo "negro" nel Sud degli Stati Uniti nei primi decenni del secolo scorso, cresciuto in una famiglia poverissima e bigotta, ha conosciuto la fame e la vita di strada. Ha sfiorato il furto e il delitto. Ha sopportato umiliazioni e ingiustizie, ha subito vessazioni da parte dei bianchi e in famiglia. Ma il suo spirito è rimasto critico e vigile. Non si è arreso alla sottomissione e ha continuato a pensare al riscatto e alla fuga. La Lettura e la Cultura l'hanno illuminato e salvato: ha scoperto che avrebbe potuto affrontare e combattere le sue battaglie con le parole, invece che con la violenza fisica, e ha cominciato ad affi...nare le sue armi. Ha vinto infine la sua guerra personale, contribuendo alla vittoria di un nuovo principio sociale: l'uguaglianza di dignità tra tutti gli uomini.
...ciò che mi lasciavano i romanzi era il senso stesso della vita.
Con autenticità e senza retorica, Richard Wright romanza la propria vita: la prima parte, quella più difficile, fino alla partenza per un viaggio incerto verso un sogno (più che correre verso qualche cosa ora stavo correndo lontano da qualche cosa). Ragazzo "negro" nel Sud degli Stati Uniti nei primi decenni del secolo scorso, cresciuto in una famiglia poverissima e bigotta, ha conosciuto la fame e la vita di strada. Ha sfiorato il furto e il delitto. Ha sopportato umiliazioni e ingiustizie, ha subito vessazioni da parte dei bianchi e in famiglia. Ma il suo spirito è rimasto critico e vigile. Non si è arreso alla sottomissione e ha continuato a pensare al riscatto e alla fuga. La Lettura e la Cultura l'hanno illuminato e salvato: ha scoperto che avrebbe potuto affrontare e combattere le sue battaglie con le parole, invece che con la violenza fisica, e ha cominciato ad affi...nare le sue armi. Ha vinto infine la sua guerra personale, contribuendo alla vittoria di un nuovo principio sociale: l'uguaglianza di dignità tra tutti gli uomini.
September 27, 2018
TODAY I finished re-reading "BLACK BOY." I first read it when I was in high school many, many years ago. At the time I read it, the book left a big impression on me. Yet, as time went on, I gave Richard Wright's autobiography little more than a second thought. So, when one of the ŷ clubs to which I belonged chose "BLACK BOY" as the Book of the Month, I was eager to see what I might find or discover from re-reading it. From the moment I plunged into the first paragraph, I felt like I was reading it for the first time, with fresh eyes.
Wright brought to me, as a reader, his fears, hopes, and dreams that he had while growing up in the South - be it in Mississippi (where he was born), Arkansas, and Tennessee. He lived with hunger, fears of running afoul of white Southerners (which required that he'd learn fast how to act, think, and be among them -- otherwise, he could end up dead, as had happened with one of his uncles who had a thriving business that whites resented him for having), and his own desire to lead a freer, independent existence within the larger society. That is, the U.S. as he knew it to be during the 1910s and 1920s.
After some effort and a lot of determination, Wright eventually was able to save enough money to go live in the North, where one of his aunts lived. Upon arriving there, in his own words: "Chicago seemed an unreal city whose mythical houses were built of slabs of black coal wreathed in palls of gray smoke, houses whose foundations were sinking slowly into the dank prairie. Flashes of steam showed intermittently on the wide horizon, ... The din of the city entered my consciousness, entered to remain for years to come. The year was 1927."
Wright would go on to work a variety of odd jobs (including work with the post office) and join the Communist Party in the early 1930s, which gave him invaluable lessons in human psychology that he would later carry over into his writing.
This is a book that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone seeking to understand the effects of man's inhumanity to man, as well as the redemptive power of the spirit that refuses to submit to degradation and oppression imposed upon it, seeking a newer world and better life.
Wright brought to me, as a reader, his fears, hopes, and dreams that he had while growing up in the South - be it in Mississippi (where he was born), Arkansas, and Tennessee. He lived with hunger, fears of running afoul of white Southerners (which required that he'd learn fast how to act, think, and be among them -- otherwise, he could end up dead, as had happened with one of his uncles who had a thriving business that whites resented him for having), and his own desire to lead a freer, independent existence within the larger society. That is, the U.S. as he knew it to be during the 1910s and 1920s.
After some effort and a lot of determination, Wright eventually was able to save enough money to go live in the North, where one of his aunts lived. Upon arriving there, in his own words: "Chicago seemed an unreal city whose mythical houses were built of slabs of black coal wreathed in palls of gray smoke, houses whose foundations were sinking slowly into the dank prairie. Flashes of steam showed intermittently on the wide horizon, ... The din of the city entered my consciousness, entered to remain for years to come. The year was 1927."
Wright would go on to work a variety of odd jobs (including work with the post office) and join the Communist Party in the early 1930s, which gave him invaluable lessons in human psychology that he would later carry over into his writing.
This is a book that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone seeking to understand the effects of man's inhumanity to man, as well as the redemptive power of the spirit that refuses to submit to degradation and oppression imposed upon it, seeking a newer world and better life.
January 19, 2020
Utterly exceptional in every way. An amazing depiction of human intolerance and Southern brutality. It makes you eager to read other books by Wright. He was such a great writing talent!
March 24, 2017
Read for English 11
Jesus Christ, my head hurts. This thing was an absolute chore to get through. never again. never again.
Richard's family was seriously dysfunctional, especially his grandmother and aunt. They were abusive and so terrible to Richard and I absolutely hated them.
So while I felt extremely sorry for Richard, I in no way found him likable. he came across to me as condescending and he seemed to look down on the people around him, especially other black people.
I could not stand his style of writing. it's unbelievably dull and dry and it...agh, it just wasn't for me.
Tl;dr version-I pretty much hated everything about this book and maybe I should cut some slack considering this is an autobiography. but fuck it, I'm not that merciful. I am literally so done with this thing. After this review I will never think of it again.
Jesus Christ, my head hurts. This thing was an absolute chore to get through. never again. never again.
Richard's family was seriously dysfunctional, especially his grandmother and aunt. They were abusive and so terrible to Richard and I absolutely hated them.
So while I felt extremely sorry for Richard, I in no way found him likable. he came across to me as condescending and he seemed to look down on the people around him, especially other black people.
I could not stand his style of writing. it's unbelievably dull and dry and it...agh, it just wasn't for me.
Tl;dr version-I pretty much hated everything about this book and maybe I should cut some slack considering this is an autobiography. but fuck it, I'm not that merciful. I am literally so done with this thing. After this review I will never think of it again.
June 4, 2019
Struggente, sofferto resoconto dell'autore sulla sua vita giovanile da nero americano negli stati del Sud, dalla travagliata infanzia alla tanto agognata emancipazione dalla sottomissione e l'ignoranza sinora patite. Il segregazionismo è vividamente dissezionato (dando quasi l'impressione di essere un romanzo realista), oltre che alla continua tensione nella sua comunità e l'ottusità da ogni fronte, causata dalla singolarità di un ragazzo di colore del profondo Sud, che prima di sopperire alla sua fame "fisica", cerca di nutrire quella spirituale contro ogni disservizio e fanatismo.
March 27, 2015
Black Boy is a deeply horrifying and intelligent memoir from Richard Wright, a Mississippi black boy who became so much more than black boys were supposed to become. His earliest memories on a Southern plantation and the tough streets of Memphis become fantastic stories that he, unfortunately, had to live.
Richard is different, who knows why, but he’s different. All the black families living on his street are hungry, but Richard wonders why he’s hungry. Why can’t his mother, a cook at a restaurant serving heaping plates to white customers, give him enough to eat? He’s too young to understand, but this inquisitive behavior will follow him through various tragedies.
At its core, the memoir is a book about a boy becoming a man. But Richard is a black boy who becomes a black man, and so instead of your basic coming-of-age story, you have a story about a boy coming of age in a society that hates him. And because Richard is so smart, he tries to learn why it hates him. This line of questioning is extraordinary given that the conditions of black people in Jim Crow South are almost like those of people living in pre-agricultural societies: they are so consumed with fulfilling basic human needs (the only constant through Richard’s numerous moves across the South is an everlasting hunger), that no time remains for them to develop things of worth and permanence.
Richard discovers the complicity of black people in their own subjugation. Indeed, this book is rarely about the oppressors, about the white people pushing the heads of black people into the ground. It’s about a culture where a white man doesn’t even have to push a black man down: he’s already lying there, starved and beaten. For the beginning of his life, white people are a hazy specter in Richard’s world. The racism of Richard’s time is so devastating and so complete because another race barely even needs to exist to perpetuate it. Almost every one of Richard’s friends refuses to shake the status quo, indeed sometimes doesn’t realize there’s a status quo to be shook.
But really what I learned from Richard’s wonderful evolution from a poor Mississippi boy with no schooling to a published Chicagoan author is the importance of compassion for others whose lives we cannot imagine. In the North Richard works as a dishwasher in a restaurant with a bunch of young white girls waitressing. They are not ill intentioned, but still they will never understand him, will never even seek to understand him, and will thus simply add to a culture that denies him basic personhood. This is bad. Imagining others is important. And that’s why Black Boy was so thrilling to me. Here is a man with a life story that I will literally never be able to fathom. And yet, he’s trying. He’s trying to make me fathom it, with every brilliant thought and sentence he’s got.
I fail. I cannot imagine living as a black boy in Mississippi in the 1910s. But gosh did this book get me close. And getting closer is what the world needs.
Richard is different, who knows why, but he’s different. All the black families living on his street are hungry, but Richard wonders why he’s hungry. Why can’t his mother, a cook at a restaurant serving heaping plates to white customers, give him enough to eat? He’s too young to understand, but this inquisitive behavior will follow him through various tragedies.
At the age of twelve, before I had one full year of formal schooling, I had a conception of life that no experience would ever erase, a predilection for what was real that no argument could ever gainsay, a sense of the world that was mine and mine alone, a notion as to what life meant that no education could ever alter, a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering.
At its core, the memoir is a book about a boy becoming a man. But Richard is a black boy who becomes a black man, and so instead of your basic coming-of-age story, you have a story about a boy coming of age in a society that hates him. And because Richard is so smart, he tries to learn why it hates him. This line of questioning is extraordinary given that the conditions of black people in Jim Crow South are almost like those of people living in pre-agricultural societies: they are so consumed with fulfilling basic human needs (the only constant through Richard’s numerous moves across the South is an everlasting hunger), that no time remains for them to develop things of worth and permanence.
Richard discovers the complicity of black people in their own subjugation. Indeed, this book is rarely about the oppressors, about the white people pushing the heads of black people into the ground. It’s about a culture where a white man doesn’t even have to push a black man down: he’s already lying there, starved and beaten. For the beginning of his life, white people are a hazy specter in Richard’s world. The racism of Richard’s time is so devastating and so complete because another race barely even needs to exist to perpetuate it. Almost every one of Richard’s friends refuses to shake the status quo, indeed sometimes doesn’t realize there’s a status quo to be shook.
But really what I learned from Richard’s wonderful evolution from a poor Mississippi boy with no schooling to a published Chicagoan author is the importance of compassion for others whose lives we cannot imagine. In the North Richard works as a dishwasher in a restaurant with a bunch of young white girls waitressing. They are not ill intentioned, but still they will never understand him, will never even seek to understand him, and will thus simply add to a culture that denies him basic personhood. This is bad. Imagining others is important. And that’s why Black Boy was so thrilling to me. Here is a man with a life story that I will literally never be able to fathom. And yet, he’s trying. He’s trying to make me fathom it, with every brilliant thought and sentence he’s got.
I fail. I cannot imagine living as a black boy in Mississippi in the 1910s. But gosh did this book get me close. And getting closer is what the world needs.
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