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Summary: Required reading
Review: BLACK BOY should be required reading for all students of history and social studies.
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Summary: Black Boy should be required reading in all high schools...
Review: Black Boy provides an exestential overview of life as a young black male in the south. Wright's open and sometimes brutal honesty satiates the readers quest to better understand, if not relate, to the lifetsyle and hardships endured by blacks everywhere.
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Summary: A wonderful portrayl of African American youth.
Review: This novel tells of the hardships African Americans faced. In one part of the book, Richard is to fight a boy that he doesn't hate. They made an agreement to go easy on each other, but when it came down to the real blows, the punches are hard. Richard wins, but later he is not happy at all. This is a great novel to educate you about the prejudices of the time, and show you that even though much has changed, it hasn't change enough.
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Summary: Richard Wright's autobiography, Black Boy hits hard!
Review: Richard Wright's autobiography, Black Boy, is a hard hitting novel that either stimulates praise or anger from those who read it. He uses his autobiography as a personal and political protest against the psychological mistreatment of young Negroes by both black and white Southern communities. The psychological mistreatment forced on him by blacks was simply in the form of beatings and censure from relatives which were intended to make him submissive and keep him from being lynched. The psychological mistreatment forced on him by whites was simply having to live and adhere to Jim Crow Laws. Some people have asked why would Richard Wright write an autobiography of this nature. His life experiences definitely would not have been as effective in arousing the public's interest written as fiction. I found his autobiography to be tough, warm, funny, and compelling. I have no doubt in my mind that his experiences were as he stated, because as autobiography goes - it just tells it like it is
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Summary: This book was very interesting and knowledgable.
Review: This book can give you a different view of how AfricanAmericans were treated during the 1700's. Richard Wright illustratethis point very well by using his own experiences during his childhood as an African American. Every event he describe in this novel was very powerful and inspiring. You can really feel like you are in the scene while you are reading this book. Throughout this novel he was able to make your emotions go up and down using the characters in this book. For example, you can really feel for the mother and child throughout this novel. This book is a very good book for an Ethnic class because you can really see the experiences African Americans had to go through before the fourteen amendment was created. The fourteen amendment abolished slavery which gave African Americans the chance of freedom. In my opinion, this book was extraordinary.
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Summary: Wright Auto Bio
Review: The first Wrift book I read was the impressive 'Native Son'. I found Black Boy and read it. It's easy to read and gives you a good insight in how black life in the south was in the 1920. Wright's life as for so many has not been easy: no father, a crippled mother, racism abound. But still he finds time to read books and he reads the classics. Especially Babbit was one of his favorites (and one of mine too). Via Memphis he goes to Chicago were he becomes a more famous writer and starts working/writing for the communist party where he has a lot of trouble as an independant thinker.This book gives a great insight into black life. REal events are interspersed with his thinking about race relations. It is also easy to read and won't take a long time to finish. Definitely worth reading!
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Summary: One of the best autobiographies ever written
Review: Richard Wright wrote one of my favorite novels, "Native Son," and this, my favorite autobiography. I never know what to think of an autobiography. First of all, the writer must have a huge ego, to write and publish the story of his or her life. Second, what writer of his own life story will tell the honest-to-God truth? I must admit, this is the only biography I've read of Mr. Wright, so I have no idea as to how accurate it is as to dates, occurrences, etc. So let me tell you why I love this book. It's because of Mr. Wright's love of books! Everything! His hunger for knowledge was incredible. . .he'd work 10 hours, eat a can of barely warm pork and beans and start reading everything he could put his hands on. (He had to talk another man at his job into letting him use his library card to check out books, because Mr. Wright was black and Negroes couldn't use the public library.) Mencken, Twain, Zola, Sinclair Lewis. . .I felt lazy after reading how this young man educated himself, against almost impossible odds, while I sit on my rear end and do nothing, with everything available to me at no price. This book will inspire you to be the best person that you can be.
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Summary: The Rain Fell but Wright Wrote Truth From His Heart
Review: This book is profound! It projects the life-story of an African American man-child in America during the early Twentieth century. Wright talks so frank and vividly about life as an African American and that of a man-child during a time of racial discord and divisions. Fear is etch upon every page. This book gripped me. It demonstrated such hunger. And assured hunger. Driven by desire. And intellect. Wright etches his a horror story the pages of his first written manuscript, a draft, that he shares with a neighbor female friend. Ahhh what a friend. If only she knew at the time for her light and enthusiasm a purpose was born into Wright.
The thing that caught my eye while reading this book was not about how his life was in the beginning. It was hard. But what really captured me was how he described the writing of his first piece. He describe the glow of the young female neighbors eyes and the amazement and the light that shown when she was so impressed with his written "words". The light that shone in her eyes upon reading something that he made. That he constructed!
From an educator's perspective whenever one can remember vivid details of one's life there's always a certain dividend of time that has been ascertain through trauma. Nevertheless, despite such a traumatic life he did remarkably well with what he had. He wrote. Which to me is a testimony to all and any writer.
Sometimes life can be filled with such an intensity of tragedy and discord that all one can do is promise oneself a memoir of sorts. . . To mark the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and even years in which one had to endure such dreadful things. Because the rain can fall and is falling so hard in a life that one can nearly drown in their own tears.
Rain did fall in Richard Wright's life but he wrote truth from his heart. . . And thus, the legend.
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Summary: Transcendent effort that will not soon be forgotten
Review: Richard Wright, known primarily as the archetypal author of Native Son, has written his most endearing work (in my opinion) in Black Boy. Although he received financial security and immense critical acclaim upon the advent of Native Son, it was, however, Black Boy that firmly cemented his name amongst the civil rights pioneers of the 1940's.
Is it merely a racial coming of age book? NO. It is, without question, infinitely more than that. It would be doing the book a grave disservice to merely pigeonhole it in that category. Black Boy, whether you want to label it an autobiographical novel or a semi-fictional autobiography, provocatively enthralls and envelops the reader into young Richard's tangled web of racial injustice, coming of age, and more importantly, self-actualization.
As we follow young Richard from his young formative years in rural Mississippi to Memphis to Chicago, we feel as if we grow with him and are rooting for him all the while to succeed and to grow both physically (from his almost constant lack of food) and mentally (his insatiable appetite for knowledge is something we all can learn from).
Although I enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book the most (the ending was somewhat abrupt and the tales of his involvement with the Communist group in Chicago were not as engaging as those in the beginning), I came away both impressed and enlightened from reading this life account of a time and place so vastly different from today's society, yet not as far removed as some would have you think.
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Summary: A great book to read
Review: Black Boy is a book about Richard Wright's struggles in the south being an african american. Richard Wright tells his story of poverty, disrespect, and his hopes and dreams of going up north. This autobiography simply tells of Richard's hunger for compassion, freedom, and justice. In the SECOND HALF of the book, Richard explains about what the north is like, how different it is compared to the south, and how he adjusts to it. This shows how Richard is not yet enculturated with the north, and its people.
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