The K Experience

Black Boy - Richard Wright

Timeless - Literature

Sunday, 11 January 2009

"At the age of twelve, before I had 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." - Richard Wright, Black Boy

This extremely insightful autobiography of the life of Richard Wright is full of sadness, violence, racism, poverty and hunger. It is less a story of his life, and more his struggle for his existence against the forces which were controlling him, be it his family, their religion or white rule in the Jim Crowe south.

At age four, while at home, he became bored one day, set the curtains alight, and accidentally burned down the family house. At age six he found himself in a saloon, where the locals enticed him to drink and tell rude words to the others. He quickly became an alcoholic at that age begging for drinks from whoever would give it to him. The rest of his childhood as explained by the book features him forever running away from beatings first of all from his family, then in later life from the Whites in his society.

The book opened up a world that was totally foreign to me. A world that I had heard of but could never fully imagine. Where a black man could be beaten or even killed for not showing due respect to his supposedly superior white counterpart, or for striving for a higher station in life, where kindness and consideration from others was so rare, that when it appeared one didn't know what to do with it.

His move to the north showed a stark contrast between race relations in the United States at that time, and as the book goes on it brings to light a more mature Wright contrasting how he had grown, and come to certain realizations in life.

For all those who are interested in race relations in the United States in the early 1900s, or anyone who enjoys a good read, this book comes highly recommended.

[Sources: Picture of book from Harper Collins Canada; See Richard Wright Wikipedia article for more on his life; For study guide and book notes on Black Boy see Bookrags.com entry]