Black Boy tells the tale of a black man’s harrowing journey as he tries to overcome discrimination and segregation not only in the South during the Jim Crow era but also in the Chicago of the 1930s. To accomplish this Wright begins his autobiography as a young boy growing up in pre-Civil Rights era Mississippi where he struggles against his own strong will and his mighty sense of justice within an environment that demands subservience. Wright’s impassioned story reveals the heartache of idealism amidst a climate of prejudice and bigotry that so isolates a young person that his anger becomes the ruling force in his life. However, this anger was not only targeted at those of the 1900s southern white social sphere but also extended to God, whom the young man viewed as cruel and malevolent, thus creating a rift isolating him even further when his family turned on him. To further complicate matters the young man attempts to find acceptance by joining the Communist party only to have them shun him because he was an intellectual.

The story revolves around Richard A. Wright (1908-1960), born in Mississippi, and how from the age of twelve “he had a conception of life that no experience would ever erase… a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering.” One example of his suffering occurred when as a young black man, Wright was forced to endure constant verbal and physical abuse by arrogant white co-workers who went so far as to hit with a bottle for failing to call a white man “sir.” The complicated racial message is clear by the middle of the book when Mr. Wright admits that he has spent most of his life “cultivating his feelings while whites spent their lives striving for petty goals and trivial material prizes.” By the end it became clear that just as the life experiences of both races are different so are their goals and expectations often making it appear as if they came from different planets.

This book, not written by a middle class, white, male scholar, should be compulsory reading as it offers the reader a black man’s perspective of American history that reveals life as it really was for Afro-Americans during this period and shows how it led to Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. Those readers with foresight will see, through glimpses into the past, how the harsh, oppressive, white-dominated southern world resulted in the angry young man you see within the pages of this autobiography and how a deeper understanding can help to rid the world of its deep-seated prejudices that isolate the races.

While Wright was never to become as well known as Malcolm X or Rosa Parks this autobiographical account of his life is undoubtedly a powerful look at a brilliant man that includes many lessons about life, including triumphs over the overwhelming obstacles set before him and his success in retaining his underlying strength, courage and undeniable individualism. Since the book so clearly illustrates the damaging effects of racism for anyone who is touched by it, I would recommend this book to teens old enough to relate to its effects. However, it is about more than racism as it is a book about a person being able to overcome all the odds if they try to hard enough.

[tags]novel,Black Boy, Richard A. Wright, prejudice, racism, Civil Rights, bigotry, Afro-American history, American history[/tags]