Wright wrote in his autobiographical Black Boy, recalling his thoughts upon first reading A Book of Prefaces. “I pictured [Mencken] as a raging demon, slashing with his pen. . . . He was using words as weapons, could words be used as weapons? Well, yes, for here they were. Then, maybe, perhaps, I could use them as weapons.” 12 Thus began the lifework of one of America’s greatest twentieth-century novelists. And as young Richard Wright sought to master the employment of the written word in fighting demons plaguing him in the racist South, young Malcolm was inspired now to weaponize the spoken
...more
