Black Boy by Richard Wright (1998)

I don t know why I picked this book off the shelf. I generally dislike novels that talk about people who are oppressed or experience a life of struggle; I like to read about something adventurous, not depressing. Nonetheless, I live in a prominently white town, and I felt it may be good for my own psychological state to remind myself that we - as humans - were all created equal. We all experience the same emotions, have the same ability to be successful, and we all have hearts and minds. Richard Wright s Black Boy is a clear reminder of these messages. The novel takes place in the early...

Black Boy by the celebrated writer Richard Wright is truly one of American literature s prized treasures, not for a fancy writing style or a mastery of literary elements, but because it tells the untold story of millions of Afro-Americans during the pre-Civil Rights era. It manages to give us an introspective glance at the what the common black felt at the condescending treatment he often received in a very subtle way, as the majority of the novel is based on the autobiographical events told in a first person point of view by the author/protagonist. At the same time, however, you don t feel...

Black Boy, by Richard Wright, is Wright's autobiography of his youth, prior to moving to Chicago. Wright tells of growing up in the 1920s in the south, primarily Mississippi. Wright went on to become a canonized writer. This story tells mostly of his hardships faced due to the extreme racism and Jim Crow atmosphere he grew up with. It's interesting and touching to read how Wright tells of his youth as a child trying to figure out what racism was, and why. He tells of how he would ask his mother questions about it, and she would refuse to answer. The book is also interesting because of Wright..

From the mouth-dropping introduction of Richard to the last page, Black Boy is a shocking ride of a poor African American boy in the racially prejudiced South. While it is always heartbreaking to read a tale about a young child suppressed by society and ignorance of the times, I'm more captured by Wright's brutal honesty in judging his world.. and himself. From the first chapter he recalls an instance where he murdered a helpless little kitten just to outsmart his father. The way he describes the event as though he had just gone out for groceries struck me, and from then on Wright proves...