Black Boy

by Richard Wright

Black Boy

published

April 1st 2007 (first published 1945) by Harper Perennial Modern Classics

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binding

Paperback, 448 pages

isbn

0061130249 (isbn13: 9780061130243)

description

Richard Wright grew up in the woods of Mississippi amid poverty, hunger, fear, and hatred. He lied, stole, and raged at those around him; at six h...more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 3761)

All ratings | 5 stars (883) | 4 stars (1264) | 3 stars (700) | 2 stars (156) | 1 star (42) | avg 3.94

all | this edition

Kristen

Kristen rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929782)

04/04/08

Read in March, 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 beg...more

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Emily

Emily rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929782)

01/27/08

Read in March, 1992

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 hardsh...more

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Samantha

Samantha rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929782)

11/06/08

This book is an autobiography about Richard Wright's life. He grew up in the Jim Crow South in terrible living conditions. He was separated from his mother many times because she could not afford to provide for Richard and his brother, he was physically beaten, and verbally abused because of his race. Some parts of the book move rather slow, but for the most part, I really enjoyed reading it. It is so sad to see how people were treated because of their skin color. Ignorant people need to le...more

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2 comments

Kris

Kris rated it:

(review of isbn 0060812508)

12/19/07

bookshelves: general-fiction

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...more

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Qiana

Qiana rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929782)

10/08/08

bookshelves: black-lit, books-i-teach, nonfiction

Read in October, 2008

My absolute favorite work by Wright - unflinching, deeply reflective, and poignant. Like many of my favorite reads, this one blurs boundaries between fiction and autobiography in expressing Wright's "truth." And since I just bashed his posthumous work, A Father's Law, I thought it appropriate that I also take note of the text that first brought Wright to my attention. His descriptions of hunger are especially chilling (I've added one to my favorite quotes).

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Cristin

Cristin rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929782)

06/21/07

bookshelves: fiction

I first read this in high school and I felt bewildered by it. Although I was able to appreciate Wright's authorial skill, I wasn't capable of allowing it to fully sink in...
After some years passed, the book called to me and I realized that this is one of the most powerful books I have read to date. The language alone is enough to cause a portion of my brain to combust.

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Dennis

Dennis rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929782)

08/29/07

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: Those interested in the darker side of American history

I admired Richard Wright after reading Native Son, but after reading Black Boy and putting his life into historical perspective, I've gained a new admiration for him. This book made me wonder if being black today defines black people as much as it did in the early 20th century when just being black could get a person lynched.

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Jen

Jen rated it:

(review of isbn 0060834005)

08/25/07

Read in August, 2007

Autobiography. I prefered the first three quarters of the book which dealt with a black child growing up in the south, then moving up north. It showed how blacks were treated in the early 1900's. The end of the book focused on communism and I just didn't find it as interesting. Overall it was a great book though.

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M. M. Sana

M. M. Sana rated it:

(review of isbn 0060834005)

04/27/07

Read in January, 1992

recommends it for: Biography Readers

If you like to read biographies and about slavery... you'll like this book. I read it for a class in high school and liked it, but I found that I liked it better when I read it again years later.

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Michelle

Michelle marked it as to-read

11/13/08

bookshelves: to-read

Richard Wright grew up in the woods of Mississippi amid poverty, hunger, fear, and hatred. He lied, stole, and raged at those around him; at six he was a "drunkard," hanging about in taverns. Surly, brutal, cold, suspicious, and self-pitying, he was surrounded on one side by whites who were either indifferent to him, pitying, or cruel, and on the other by blacks who resented anyone trying to rise above the common lot.

Black Boy is Richard Wright's powerful account of his journey fr...more

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Alaina.caraballo

Alaina.caraballo rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929782)

11/04/08

Richard Wright was a loser growing up in Mississippi with family members who embraced religion. A few of the most disturbing aspects of his early childhood included him accidentally burning down his home, and hanging a stray kitten that his father carelessly instructed him to kill— this, however, was not to be taken literally; Richard's father just wanted the kitten to be quiet so that he could go back to sleep. Richard's hatred for his father led him to take a more literal interpretation of t...more

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Mallory

Mallory rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929782)

08/04/08

recommended to Mallory by: Katie Devine
recommends it for: Anyone

Starting a book at 1am. And finishing at 5am. Sometimes leads me to this:

I have been beaten for fighting tonight (1). Inspired by Richard Wright – and without the right- I suppose, because I have not led this life. But I know that Jay Z stay playing because of Are W. I know what I have read like the back of blacker hands and agree with Johnson that the Black American culture needs a new narrative (2). But the same old blueprint if you please (3). And don’t hide your opinion in a journal ...more Starting a book at 1am. And finishing at 5am. Sometimes leads me to this:

I have been beaten for fighting tonight (1). Inspired by Richard Wright – and without the right- I suppose, because I have not led this life. But I know that Jay Z stay playing because of Are W. I know what I have read like the back of blacker hands and agree with Johnson that the Black American culture needs a new narrative (2). But the same old blueprint if you please (3). And don’t hide your opinion in a journal you know they your audience doesn’t read. The blueprint brought back to remind us that it is not always black, but it is always class. No color but green in this scene and until we become a little bit more pink I will not have health care guaranteed. I will become what I hate someday and probably soon when I get that paper that I got by studying Harlem and Civil literature so that I might call an ambulance someday should I faint from hunger and the signature of the one I sold my blood to (4). I will become what I hate to survive. I CAN become what I hate because I’m white. Or I look it. And those who mistake it have underestimated how well I can fake it and how I’ve lived in enough places to know when to play it. Up and down or nappy or straightened. I am lucky though muddy I am. People sometimes think that I may have culture. The one’s that know that I don’t have no power and thus, I am no poser. I am passing (5). Passing even as my brother burns the bottoms of his version of virgin white curtains(1) with an enflamed bit of straw because he did not know that he would bring the house down or think that it will burn at all. Passing as my brother sits in court, hoping that in ten minutes of sentences that his sentence will not put him with other harmless boys with harmless bits of straw waiting to be raped in his ass because he is thinner if not hungrier, because he did what he was born to do and bore a trash can through the head of the boar who called him ‘gook’(6). I am passing as someone more intelligent and passing in it because instead I am passionate. Even without anger towards any color because I am not any color or even many colors and have been taught it doesn’t matter by those I believe in and taught that it does by those that I’m scared of which shows that I was taught in a much more effective way by those that I believe in that it does matter because I have to honestly say that there are those that I am scared of. And it is when there is no one to fight against because no one is scared of me and because there is no self-righteousness, that I will be beaten for fighting. Charged for tithing and called on as a hypocrite for Richardish wri[gh:]ting. Though I know it like the back of blacker hands.

1)Black Boy, Richard Wright
2)The New Narrative, Charles Johnson in the journal, The American Scholar
3)Blueprint for Negroe Writing, Richard Wright
4)"Hannah Montana I Am Not...", Mallory Josol HO! http://www.servicenation.org/n...
5)Passing by Nella Larson
6)My little brother, apparently.

Oh and the quotes to come. My god -your god, probably- the quotes....less

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Lisa

Lisa rated it:

(review of isbn 0060834005)

06/05/08

bookshelves: african-american

Read in June, 2008

recommends it for: people interested in segregation in the 20's and 30's.

Richard Wright's autobiography, Black Boy,does the best job I've read of describing the feeling of being a young black man in the segregated South. Much of his young life is spent trying to get enough food. He even tries to sell his dog to buy food.

He also describes the fear he carries of letting his true feelings show. He must always pretend to be happy with his lot in life. If the white people who oppressed him knew he secretly hated them, they would kill him.

This passage br...more

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Stephanie

Stephanie rated it:

04/01/08

Read in April, 2008

I read this in college and have always held onto it, and re-reading it now I remember why. The writing is so straightforward and honest, and there's such an interesting perspective on the black perspective in the early 20th Century American South from this author. It's gripping from the very beginning, when he describes staring at the fire in the living room of the house he lived in at 5 or 6 years old, ordered to keep quiet and so bored, wondering what it would be like to burn something in ther...more

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Charlene

Charlene rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929782)

11/19/07

Read in November, 2007

This is the first book I’ve read by Richard Wright. It’s a semi-autobiographical novel about him growing up black in the early part of the 20th century. Most of my limited experience has been from accounts of the 50s and 60s, but his memories to me provide a historical and sequential prologue of the same cruelty and injustice. Many of his ponderings are still relevant today. One of my favourite passages was this:

“Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggres...more This is the first book I’ve read by Richard Wright. It’s a semi-autobiographical novel about him growing up black in the early part of the 20th century. Most of my limited experience has been from accounts of the 50s and 60s, but his memories to me provide a historical and sequential prologue of the same cruelty and injustice. Many of his ponderings are still relevant today. One of my favourite passages was this:

“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 the 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. Am I damning my native land? No; for I, too, share these faults of character! And I really do not think that America, adolescent and cocksure, a stranger to suffering and travail, an enemy of passion and sacrifice, is ready to probe into its most fundamental beliefs.”

He also talked about the materialism of white people and looked down upon it as insulation from life’s passions specific to the race. That part, at least, seems dated given today’s society.

My favourite bits are also problematic. I don’t think the rationale “I’m like that too, so I can say it” is productive, as it leads to a realm where you make excuses for your own behaviour. I think Wright does quite a bit of excuse-making to justify his attitudes. As in, what made him stand out to become someone with his attitudes and ideas? The experiences he writes about are not ones that shape but rather reactions to his already-formed personality. He also seems to have negative opinions of women, though just about the only women described are those who are related to him. In the end, I felt the book was more a way to use selected experiences as a springboard for his thoughts on race and roles rather than a traditional autobiography.

Bah.
...less

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Maya

Maya rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929782)

01/29/08

Read in October, 2007

recommended to Maya by: Pat
recommends it for: David M., Justin, Ben, Elena

Amazing, amazing, amazing. Wright's memoir from his earliest memories to being a Communist in the thirties in Chicago. Fascinating stuff about being black in the south. Lots of interesting exploration of alienation--from blacks, southerners, northerners, religious people, his family. One just got the sense he was an outsider no matter where he went...I love how he talked about the tension inherent in existence and how learning how to live life was about learning how to deal with that tension...more Amazing, amazing, amazing. Wright's memoir from his earliest memories to being a Communist in the thirties in Chicago. Fascinating stuff about being black in the south. Lots of interesting exploration of alienation--from blacks, southerners, northerners, religious people, his family. One just got the sense he was an outsider no matter where he went...I love how he talked about the tension inherent in existence and how learning how to live life was about learning how to deal with that tension. Also he has a very sly sense of humor and you sort of understand why so many people seemed to want to slap him. Anyway there were so many different things I liked about this book--Richard Wright's personality, his crazy family, depiction of hunger, complete lack of self-pity, his love of reading, his stark understanding of human nature that manages to be objective but not cold. Above all, his dealing with his profound sense of isolation/alienation and his drive to make something of a life which, as he makes so clear, was clearly not valued by those around him.

There were lots of lines I wanted to write down, here are some...

"During my lunch hour, which I spent on a bench in a near-by park, the waitresses would come and site beside me, talking at random, laughing, joking, smoking cigarettes. I learned about their tawdry dreams, their simple hopes, their home lives, their fear of feeling anything deeply, their sex problems, their husbands. They were an eager, restless talkative, ignorant bunch, but casually kind and impersonal for all that. They knew nothing of hate and fear, and strove instinctively to avoid all passion. I often wondered what they were trying to get out of life, but I never stumbled upon a clue, and I doubt if they themselves had any notion."

Also when he joined this group, "It did not say: "Be like us and we will like you, maybe.' It said: "If you possess enough courage to speak out what you are, you will find that you are not alone." It urged life to believe in life."...less

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Jason

Jason rated it:

(review of isbn 0060812508)

10/22/07

american hunger in it's rawest form, in my opinion. there is a certain drive in wright's work, almost desperate.
just like with any hunger, you do all you can to quench it if it gets bad enough. his hunger was mostly physical in that his father abandoned the family at an early age leaving the them to fend for themselves. there is a type of synonymity between the non-existence of his father and food in his life best illustrated with this description:"As the days slid past the image of my f...more

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Jenn

Jenn rated it:

07/19/07

Read in January, 1968

My uncle and I were the family's biggest child prodigies and bookworms; he gave me this title when I was a kid and he was working in a bookstore. (These days, he's a librarian and I'm a book publicist, so we're still the family bookworms.) I haven't reread this one in a while, but I remember finding it fascinating. I always enjoyed books that showed the day-to-day details of ways of life different from my own, no matter how difficult. In fact, I particularly liked books that involved poor fa...more

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Corbin

Corbin rated it:

(review of isbn 0060929782)

10/03/08

bookshelves: memoir

Read in October, 2008

There's a certain degree of self-involvement that exists in every autobiography and Wright certainly doesn't stray far from the flock..in fact, I think that he might be the leader of the flock(it's certainly linked to his communist action). There's a level of narcissim in this book that seems to go beyond a lot of memoirs and it's particularly annoying in the first half of the book before I finally decided to just ignore as much as possible.

The repetitedness was itching under my skin...&q...more

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Daniel

Daniel rated it:

04/25/08

bookshelves: fiction

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in April, 2008

recommended to Daniel by: God
recommends it for: anyone who is literate and has a soul

This book is so good that it kept me from drinking! I was sitting on the sofa the other night, sipping wine and reading, and the quality of the writing was so wonderful that I thought to myself I needed to be careful not to drink too much wine or I would lose the sensation of the words...it is like intellectual cocaine. Native Son was terrific, too, but I think this autobiography may be even better. There is a narrative force that compels one to read fast and an opposite tendency to want to savo...more

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avg rating (this edition): 3.97 (607 ratings)
number of reviews: 241

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