Black Boy by Richard Wright

With February being Black History Month, I decided that it was a good time to pick up Richard Wright's Black Boy. I chose this novel for the "Classic by an Author of Color" category in the Back to the Classics Challenge, and it was on my Classic Club list as well. It's one that I had been wanting to try for a long time. I didn't know anything about this book when I started reading, but I very much enjoyed Native Son when I read it last year and was excited to try more from this author. It didn't take me long to realize the depth of my ignorance; I had absolutely no idea that Black Boy was nonfiction. I caught on after seeing that the protagonist's name was Richard Wright and doing a little Googling. This was embarrassing - I felt like I should have known this given how important this novel is to the cannon of African American literature. It was a pleasant surprise to discover though, as I'm actively trying to read more nonfiction this year. Happy to find out more about the life of Richard Wright, I sheepishly continued on.

Black Boy tells the story of Wright's life from his early childhood to his young adult years. The text is broken up into two parts. Part I, "Southern Night," focuses on his childhood and adolescence living in the South, while Part II, "The Horror and the Glory," focuses on his young adulthood in Chicago. Part I is around 260 pages, and Part II is around 125, so the majority of the novel centers around his early years in the southern United States. Wright paints a stark and desolate picture of this time. His father abandoned the family when Richard and his brother were very young, and from that moment on, his life was one of hunger and hardship. His mother moved the family around multiple times chasing various low-paying jobs until her health began to fail her and they were forced to rely on the help of family members. Money was always tight and there was never enough food to go around.

Young Richard became used to the constant moving, but he struggled to get along in his various living situations. His schooling was continually disrupted due to lack of money for books and clothes, he clashed with his religious family members over his lack of faith, and his restless behavior often got him into trouble. Aside from those issues, the racism of the time period filled him with a constant sense of fear and anxiety.  As he grew older and began working for white people, these fears sharpened. Wright had to be careful to behave in exactly the right way, or risk losing his job, or even his life. Eventually, he discovered a love for literature and writing. Knowing, however, that the South is not the place where a black man can become a successful author, he worked hard and saved enough money to move north to Chicago. He assumed that the racism would be better there, and that he would be more free to pursue his literary ambitions.

Part II of the novel begins as Wright arrived in Chicago. At once, he was struck by how different the atmosphere was. Whites were much less outwardly hostile to him, but he still struggled to regard them with anything but suspicion. Racism wasn't gone in his new home, but it was less severe; there was less need for the constant terror of whites that characterized his earlier years, but it took him a while to learn how to let that fear go. Eventually he became used to his new way of life, but things still weren't easy for him. The Great Depression was setting in and he struggled to find steady work.

As he moved in and out of a few different jobs, he began to work on his writing in earnest. He joined a writing organization with close ties to the Communist Party and soon found himself drawn further and further into his local Communist chapter. His resulting relationship to the Communist Party was characterized by paranoia and strife. He believed in their principles, but disagreed totally with their leadership and execution. The other members of the party weren't quite sure what to make of Wright's opinions, and branded him as an "intellectual" and a potential "enemy of the working class."  He eventually became completely disillusioned with the group and the novel ends as he works to extricate himself from it and follow his own principles.

Black Boy is an excellent novel of personal growth. Reading about Wright's journey from childhood to adulthood was both fascinating and gut-wrenching. His struggles against poverty, racism, and politics come together to create a story that feels brutal, genuine, and uniquely (sadly) American. Wright's depiction of what life was life for African Americans in the Jim Crow South was difficult to read. His everyday existence was completely consumed by fear and violence. One small slip up, like an ill-timed laugh or a negative facial expression, could result in tragic consequences, and the way Wright expresses this tension on the page is masterful. I felt his anxiety and shame as I read, and was torn between wanting to take a break and wanting to know more. Wanting to know more ultimately won out, and I finished this novel quickly. 

I thought Part I of this novel was essentially perfect. Wright's long and arduous escape from the South was expertly portrayed, historically interesting, and completely engaging. I was ready to call this a new favorite throughout my reading of it. Once I began Part II, however, I was a little less impressed. Wright spent a lot of time in this section discussing Communism. He described how he joined the party, how he struggled to contribute to the movement, how he became disillusioned with it, and how he eventually broke with it. In addition to describing his direct involvement, he also theorized about its impact on the African American community, and how he believed it wasn't functioning in a way that was helpful to his people. This was much less timely and interesting than Part I and I found my attention drifting from time to time as I read. While the overall novel is still excellent, this section dropped my rating from five stars to four. I would say that I wish Wright spent less time on the Communism aspect of the story, but as this is a work of nonfiction, I suppose that decision wasn't truly his to make. His life was consumed by his political activities at that time, so of course, his memoir is consumed by it as well.

I learned from the supplementary materials included in the back of my edition that Black Boy was originally published without Part II. Apparently, Communist leaders pressured Wright and his publisher to remove the parts of the novel that were critical of their party, and they complied. Later editions of the work have this section restored (obviously). While I didn't enjoy Part II as much as Part I of the story, I do think that Part II is necessary to understanding the message that Wright is trying to send. His flight to the North was ultimately a positive move for him, but it wasn't exactly the racial paradise that he was envisioning. Things were still difficult there and changing cities didn't solve all of his problems. To present the story without this ending would have been incomplete. It would have been disingenuous to allow the reader to assume that Wright moved to Chicago and lived happily every after.

Ultimately, Black Boy is a powerful novel. It's engaging, emotional, and very readable. Wright's brutally honest look at racism is illuminating as well. Everyone knows that this time period was grossly unjust and cruel to people of color. Reading about someone's firsthand experiences, however, sheds an invaluable light on the situation. Wright's words helped me to attain a deeper understanding of how damaging and insidious racism was to America at this time. This should be required reading in schools. I believe it would help people understand each other better. I'm very glad that I made this novel a part of my reading challenges. My only regret is that I didn't come into contact with it earlier in my life.


Challenge Tally
Back to the Classics 2020 (Classic by an Author of Color): 3/12
Classics Club (#13 on my list): 65/100 
True Books 2020 (Bonus Book Added) 4/13
Total Books Read in 2020: 12