Native Son

by Richard Wright

That was what everybody would say anyhow, no matter what he said. And in a certain sense he knew that the girl’s death had not been accidental. He had killed many times before, only on those other times there had been no handy victim or circumstance to make visible or dramatic his will to kill His crime seemed natural; he felt that all of his life had been leading; to something like this. It was no longer a matter of dumb wonder as to what would happen to him and his black skin; he knew now The hidden meaning of his life—a meaning which others did not see and which he had always tried to hide—had spilled out. No; it was no accident, and he would never say that it was. There was in him a kind of terrified pride in feeling and thinking that some day he would be able to say publicly that he had done it. It was as though he had an obscure but deep debt to fulfil to himself in accepting the deed.

He did because HE COULD. There was nothing else in his life that he controlled. Not his job, his living conditions, his family, his looks, his opportunities. He stunned the white people by making them think twice about black men being “dumb”.